You Know Me Too Well
by lightingpaperlanterns
Summary: "Withholding evidence? Impersonating a police officer? They're both against the law, you know," Lanie pointed out. Castle kept his gaze on her, knowing that she'd break eventually. "Alright, fine, but don't blame me if you end up in prison."
1. Chapter 1

**Why hello there!  
Anyway, onto the story, which I had a stroke of inspiration for a couple of nights ago. I was rewatching all the old episodes of Castle, like, season one, and I'm all caught up on this season (which I shouldn't be, living in Australia, where season three hasn't even started yet. But let's not talk about that) and I thought that I'd try my hand at my very first Castle fan fiction. This chapter is the shortest that I've written so far, but it's just an introductory passage. Chapter two is a little bit longer, and then chapter three is quite long. And I am really, really liking where this is going, so I should be able to finish it for you, not leave it for long periods of time like my other ones because I got the dreaded block. Anyway, enough about me, on to the story!**

**A/N: I have never been to New York City, so excuse me if I get some details wrong.  
Disclaimer: If the events in this story had actually happened in the TV Series, do you really think I'd be writing about them?

* * *

**

Detective Kate Beckett stirred groggily as she heard the distant sound of her phone ringing. She opened her eyes and turned to look at the clock radio that was positioned on the dressing table on the opposite side of the room. Six in the morning? Sighing, she answered the phone.

"Beckett," she said, yawning.

"Homicide, corner of Fifth and Lex."

"I'm on my way, sir," she told Captain Montgomery, lifting herself out of the bed. "Bye."

* * *

Crime writer Richard Castle had had a stroke of inspiration for his next novel sometime around midnight, and, having woken up straight away, almost ran to his laptop and started typing. At about five past six, his phone rang. Normally, when into his writing like he was now, he would have just let it go to voicemail, but he knew that the only person that would be ringing at six in the morning would be Beckett, and she would have a dead body somewhere. He picked up his phone.

"Castle," he answered, closing the lid to his laptop and getting his coat.

"Stop sounding so awake, it's annoying," Beckett groaned. "Fifth and Lex, soon as you can. Don't do anything until I get there."

"Understood," he said, then hung up the phone. He was out the door a second later.

* * *

Ten minutes later, holding two scolding cups of coffee from the nearest cafe, Castle stood with Detectives Ryan and Esposito, and Lanie, the coroner. "Where's Beckett?" he asked, anxiously looking around. He knew that she should have been here by now, the scene being only a five minute drive from where she currently lived. It wasn't right for her to be late like this, and not tell them.

"What do you got, Lanie?" Esposito asked, evidently sick of waiting.

"Single gunshot wound to the chest, died instantly," she said. "Standard run of the mill murder. I'd still like to have the body taken back to the lab, so I can look for anything out of the ordinary."

"Okay," Ryan said. "Any ID on him?"

"None that I can find," Lanie shrugged. "Sorry guys."

"It's okay, have CSU canvas the area, see if they can find anything."

Castle stayed away from the body. Beckett had told him on the phone not to do anything until she got there – and by now, he'd learned to do exactly as she said. Well, that, and he was fairly sure that there was something wrong with Beckett. He put the cups of coffee on the top of his car and pulled out his phone, dialling his partner's number.

"Beckett," came the voice on the other end.

"Hey, Beckett, where are you? We've been waiting for fifteen minutes!"

"Oh, sorry, Rick, got held up in traffic. I'll be there soon."

"Yeah, okay," Castle nodded, before hanging up the phone.

"Something wrong?" Esposito asked, leaning against the car. "Where's Beckett?"

"Guys... I think Beckett's been kidnapped. 


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Okay, so there's a bit in this chapter that I wasn't too sure of, and I watched the entire series again and couldn't find any mention of it, so I'm just not going to worry about it. **

**and also, a very big thank you to everybody who alerted or reviewed. To be honest, I totally wasn't expecting it, and it made my morning, waking up to all those lovely emails. And congratulations to iHeartYou13 for guessing correctly why Castle thought Beckett had been kidnapped. Enjoy the next chapter, guys.**

**Disclaimer: I'm here on fanfiction because I'm not writing the TV show. Capiche?**

**

* * *

**

"What do you mean, kidnapped?" Ryan asked.

"I mean like, stuffed into a car and taken to a dungeon somewhere where she's going to get tortured."

"Why would somebody want to kidnap and torture Beckett?" Ryan asked.

Castle stared at him. "Are you serious? A badass cop like her? You know how many people she's put behind bars. Their families or friends could have something to do with it."

"Woah, woah, what makes you think she was kidnapped?" Esposito asked.

"She didn't answer the phone," he replied. "I mean, it sounded like she did, but it wasn't her – it more sounded like somebody was trying to imitate her. And whoever it was said she was stuck in traffic, but I know for a fact that she wasn't."

"Oh, yeah? How?"

"There wasn't any background noise," he said.

"What does that prove?" Ryan asked.

"Well, when you're stuck in traffic, what do you hear? You hear the sound of dozens of engines standing still all around you. You hear revs of angry drivers, you hear horns. You hear yelling. You don't hear nothing."

"Okay, that still doesn't prove anything. Maybe she's just in really patient traffic."

"In New York?" Esposito asked his partner. "Yeah, right. Okay, give us one more thing that convinces you she's been kidnapped."

Castle sighed, leaning back against the car. "Whoever it was called me Rick."

Ryan and Esposito glanced at each other and pulled out their radios.

"Detective Esposito here. Detective Beckett's been kidnapped."

* * *

"You are not working this case!" Captain Montgomery said to the three of them, slamming his fist down on the table. "I refuse to let the three of you get involved – you're too closely connected."

"Isn't that a good reason why we should work the case?" Ryan asked. "I mean, when Castle and I were kidnapped by the Triple Killer, Beckett came for us. When Esposito and I were kidnapped by the guy that killed her mum, Castle and Beckett came for us."

Castle blushed slightly at this and turned away, remembering in vivid detail the events that had occurred for them to get into the building they'd been held in. Thankfully, nobody noticed, because Esposito had turned to his partner and said "You seem to get kidnapped a lot, Ryan."

"I am not letting you three work the case!" he repeated. "Go home, all of you. I'll call you back in when I need you again."

The three men looked at each other. "Understood," they nodded, then stood up and left the room. Grabbing their things from their desks on the way, they then travelled down the lift together, and stepped out into the New York sun.

"You know where Beckett lives, right Castle?" Esposito asked, opening the driver's side door for him.

"Sure do," he grinned, as he strapped himself in and waited for the others to get in. "I own it."

* * *

"Detective Esposito, this is Detective Ryan, we have a few questions for you," Esposito said to the security guard at Beckett's building as he presented his badge. "It's concerning one of your residents."

"Of – of course," the guard said, confused. "Can I ask who it is?"

"I'm sorry, we'd rather not say until we're in a secure environment," Ryan answered. "How do you feel about waffles?"

"Okay then," the guard nodded, then followed Ryan and Esposito out of the building. As they left, Esposito gave the slightest nod of the head to Castle, who was standing in the lobby. When they were gone, Castle took his chance. He asked for the spare key to Beckett's apartment, and, successfully getting that, he ran up the stairs to get there. The door was shut, no sign of a struggle. Which meant that it was likely she had left the building before she'd been taken. Still, it didn't hurt to check.

There was nothing strange or suspicious in the apartment. Everything was exactly how it had been last time he'd been here. Just in case, he checked Beckett's own private murder board, the one with the case details of her mother's death, and again, not a change. Next, he checked the bedroom, though he figured that because he'd never been in there, he probably wouldn't know if something was different. Defeated, he headed back out to the hallway – but something strange registered in the corner of the eye and he paused, turning around to get a better look.

* * *

"Do you recognise this woman?" Ryan asked the security guard, pushing a picture of Beckett towards him.

"Yeah, she lives in the building," he answered. "Don't know which apartment, but she lives there."

"What time did you start your shift this morning?" Esposito asked.

"My shift started at four o'clock in the morning."

"Mr..."

"Lorridge," the guard answered.

"Mr Lorridge," Ryan nodded, "did you see this woman leave the building this morning? Would have been around six o'clock, maybe ten past?"

Lorridge shook his head certainly. "Definitely not."

Ryan and Esposito exchanged glances. "Did anybody suspicious enter the building before that time?"

"Nobody left or entered the building until about seven o'clock. And this woman hasn't left at all."

"Thank you for your time, Mr Lorridge," Esposito said, standing up and leaving the money for the food on the table. "C'mon, Ryan."

As soon as they were out of earshot of him, Esposito started talking. "So, what do we got?"

"We know that she was called in on the homicide, then she called us, then Castle at around five past six. After that, nobody heard from her. She was uncharacteristically late for the crime scene, and then she called Castle 'Rick'."

"That's weird. I don't think I've ever heard her do that."

"She'd never do that, it's... unnatural. Anyway, so we now know that Beckett never left the building, and nobody suspicious left it afterwards. Which means she's still in the building."

"Or there's another way out, besides the front door."

"Call Castle?"

"Call Castle."


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey guys, how's your week been? Mine - well, let's just say it's involved quite a bit of writer's block. I know how the story ends, but I just don't know how to get there (as in, I'm having trouble with a filler chapter). But, I'm trying my hardest to get it finished so that you guys don't have to endlessly wonder if I'm ever going to get the story finished. **

**A/N: This story deviates from the end of 3x13 - Knockdown. The events of Lucky Stiff (3x14) have absolutely nothing to do with this fic. Enjoy!**

**Also, changed the title of the story from "What Would Beckett Do?" to "You Know Me Too Well." Sorry if that confuses you. It's still the same story, it just needed a different title!**

**

* * *

**

Beckett's phone, keys and badge were on the table next to the door. To Castle this meant only one thing: she was taken as she was heading out of it. And whoever had taken her had left the badge and phone there as a message.

"They don't want us to try and find her," he muttered to himself, pulling out his phone. If Beckett's phone had been left right here when she'd been kidnapped, then how had Castle been able to speak to the kidnapper when he'd dialled the phone number before. He clicked the button to put it on loudspeaker.

As he had suspected, Beckett's phone rang. Castle was watching it vibrate right in front of him. But after two rings, the phone in front of him stopped, yet the ring tone kept going on his own.

"Beckett," the unfamiliar voice answered.

"Hey, Kate, it's Rick," he said, hoping this would work. "You still stuck in traffic?"

"As a matter of fact, I'm not... My car broke down I'm at the mechanic. I probably won't be able to get into the precinct until later."

"Well, how about I swing by and give you a lift – I'll even pay for the car to get fixed."

"No thanks, Rick. I'll be fine. I gotta go."

And then the line went dead. He knew that Beckett would not have been waiting at the mechanic if she had broken down – she'd be working the case while borrowing somebody's car. He also knew that she'd never taken the car because her keys were here.

His phone rang. "Castle," he answered.

"Yo, it's Esposito. Anything?"

"Her phone, badge and car keys are still here," he said. "And whoever has her has put the phone on to call forwarding. Is there any way to track that?"

"Not without the help of the police," he said, sounding disappointed. "What about her gun? Is that there?"

"She keeps her gun on her most of the time," he said, leaning against the back of the door. He looked again around the main room, trying to see if there was anything at all that he'd missed. And there was nothing, though he did notice with a pang the flowers he'd bought her last week standing in a vase on the kitchen bench.

"So she was taken as she was leaving her apartment?" Esposito asked.

"That's what I'm guessing... Also, I think whoever took her knows her, but doesn't know her too well. Any way we can look into old college friends? Anybody that has a talent for mimicing voices."

"We'll see what we can do," he said. "If you can think of anything else, do it."

"Understood," he nodded, then hung up.

Right then, there was a slight push on the door. Alarmed, he quickly took Beckett's phone and badge, then got up and sat down on the couch, picking up the closest book and pretending to read it.

"Castle?" the newcomer asked. "What are you doing in here? I told you not to work this case!"

"Captain Montgomery," Castle boomed. "I was just reading, honest." He held up the book to show the Captain.

"_Heat Wave_," the captain read. "You were reading your own book."

"I certainly was," he grinned, realising how stupid that must have looked. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for any evidence that may lead us to whoever took Detective Beckett. What are you doing here? Intentionally contaminating a potential crime scene?"

"I'm sorry, you told me to go home – is it a crime for me to be in my own house?"

"What?"

"I own this place, remember?" he said, cocking an eyebrow.

"Damn it, Castle!"

"Her keys are by the door, which means she was taken as she left. And by somebody that knew her, but didn't know her well."

"So we're looking for a stalker?"

"A shabby one," Castle said. "But, if you remember, I'm not supposed to be helping you with the case. Oh, and there's nothing out of the ordinary inside, so you'd be wasting your time."

"Castle," he said warningly.

"I'm going, but don't say I didn't warn you."

* * *

"What are you fellas doing here?" Castle asked Ryan and Esposito when he arrived back at his own apartment.

"Well, I was thinking we could talk about what we're doing next," Ryan said. "You know, about getting Beckett back."

"Whatever we decide to do, we have to be careful. Montgomery's put himself on the case and caught me at Beckett's apartment."

"What? What did you do?"

"Well, I explained how it was technically my apartment and it wasn't a crime for me to be in there. I also told him about her keys being by the door."

"What about the phone and badge?" asked Esposito.

"What, you mean these ones?" he asked, pulling them out of his pocket carefully. "They need to be dusted for prints, but I reckon they'll give us something useful."

"You're contaminating evidence," Ryan said bluntly. "Here, I always carry around spare evidence bags," he added, holding out two clear bags to Castle.

"Thank you. Which means we need to enlist Lanie, to do the prints... Esposito, think you can manage that?"

He looked surprised. "Me? What makes you think I can do it?"

"No reason," Castle shrugged, while Ryan fought to suppress a giggle.

* * *

"If I get fired, I'm blaming you three," Lanie said half an hour later. "This had better be damn well worth it."

"Whoever took Beckett set call forwarding on her phone," Castle sighed. "I'm assuming whoever it was is careless, so they wouldn't have used gloves, so there'll be prints on there."

"You'd better hope yours aren't covering them then," Lanie shot back as she covered the buttons in sticky tape. When she found a print, she pulled it off and dusted it so that she could get a clear print. "I'll get back to you when I have more information, alright?" she said taking the phone and the badge.

"Actually, we were wondering if we could keep those," Castle said, pointing to the items.

Lanie raised her eyebrows at him questioningly. "They're evidence, Castle," she said.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," he said. "Montgomery doesn't know that these were left at the crime scene, and I don't want him to know. I might need the badge to get in somewhere, and if somebody rings Beckett, I want to be able to hear what's going on in the background. There has to be something!"

"Withholding evidence? Impersonating a police officer? They're both against the law, you know," Lanie pointed out.

"I know that," Castle said, the tiniest hint of a tear in the corner of his eye. "But I'm willing to break the law to get her back." Castle kept his gaze on her.

She looked at him for a moment and nodded before handing him the badge and phone. "Alright, but don't blame me if you end up in prison. Need me to do anything else?"

"Yes, actually. If Montgomery asks if we were here – I need you to lie."

"I'll do my best," she shrugged, taking the prints with her into her lab.

* * *

"Are you sure about this?" Ryan asked, holding his phone in his hand. "I mean, what if they figure out that we're on to them. They could do something drastic."

"Well, that's why you're going to pretend nothing's wrong, right?" Castle asked. "I can't call her again, they'll start thinking I'm onto them."

"Alright," the detective said. "Here goes nothing." He pressed the green 'call' button, and heard Beckett's phone ring two times in front of him. Then, her phone stopped ringing and somebody answered.

"Beckett," the mysterious woman said. Castle clicked the green button on Beckett's phone and put it to his ear, listening intently.

"Beckett, it's Ryan. Where are you? Montgomery says he needs to see you urgently."

"I'm a bit tied up at the moment," she said. "It can't wait?"

"Nope," Ryan said. "He's not very happy. Hey, we haven't seen you since yesterday. Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," the woman said, breaking out of character in irritation. She coughed to regain composure. "I'll see you later, Ryan."

The line went dead. Castle grinned.

"What are you smiling about?" asked Esposito. "We didn't learn anything."

"Oh? because I heard dripping water. And where do you find dripping water, gentlemen?"

"The sewer..."

"Bathrooms..."

"Those are both extremely more likely than what I was going to say," Castle admitted.

"And what were you going to say?"

"Basements. Seems kind of stupid now."

"No, no, basements are a common room for somebody to imprison their kidnappee. They usually have like, small sinks in basements, don't they Ryan?"

"Yeah."

"Does Beckett's building have a basement?"

"Yes, it does."

"Okay, we'll question the neighbours, go over security footage. Castle, can you see if Lanie's got anything?"

"You might have a problem with that. Montgomery was already over there this morning – he's probably already questioned the neighbours, and looked over the security footage. And he would have already told them _not_ to talk to any other cops."

"Good thing you're not a cop then, huh?" Ryan smirked. Castle had a feeling their assignments from Esposito had already been reversed.

* * *

"I have the autopsy report for our shooting victim this morning," Lanie told Ryan and Esposito later. "Fortunately, you're still on that case, so it won't be too hard to get you in here to talk to you about our little side-project. Anyway, it was as we thought; the victim was shot straight through the heart, killing him instantly. There was a pool of blood on the pavement, but I noticed that there wasn't any blood splatter, so I looked for something that would mean he was lying down."

"Well, I had uniforms ask around the area. Nobody heard any signs of a struggle or an argument. A couple did hear gunshots in the early hours of this morning, but they dismissed it as a car backfiring, otherwise they would have called in earlier."

Lanie glared at him. "As I was saying, I looked for something that would cause him to have fallen unconscious. There was no sign of aneurysm or shock, so I ruled that out. And I almost hit a brick wall – but then I noticed that there was a wet substance around the vic's mouth."

"What is it?" Esposito asked.

"Chloroform," Lanie said. "He was knocked out with Chloroform, then laid on the ground and shot with a 38 callibre gun. No prints from the crime scene."

"I talked to his family earlier and told them what happened. They don't know anybody that would want to hurt him and he doesn't have any criminal history. His apartment was clean and so were his financials and background check. I say it seems as though the reason he was killed had nothing to do with him."

"AHEM!" an extremely loud cough came from the speaker of Ryan's phone. "Hello?"

"Castle, what are you doing listening in? It's not your case," Esposito asked. "Ryan?"

"He asked me to let him in on it," Ryan admitted. "He thinks they might be connected."

"And can you please stop talking about me like I'm not here?" he asked. Ryan sighed and pulled the phone out of his pocket, switching it onto speaker.

"What do you want, Castle?" Lanie asked.

"You said that there was traces of chloroform on him?"

"Yeah."

"And Esposito said that he thinks that whoever killed him didn't kill him because of who he was. Well, what if it was a distraction?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, what if they knew that a homicide would mean we'd be at the crime scene. They obviously know where Beckett lives and what she does, so they killed a random guy five minutes away from her apartment: then, as soon as they're done, they go and wait outside Beckett's door until the body is found. She gets called in, calls all of us in, and then leaves – except the kidnapper is there waiting for her, just waiting for her to leave so that they can nab her."

"Did you find anything out from the neighbours?"

"They didn't hear any screaming, or cries for help."

"Why not?" Lanie asked.

"Well, I don't know. Maybe whoever took her used chloroform."

Esposito looked at the other two. "That acutally makes a lot of sense."

"Thanks, Castle, try and see what else you can figure out."

"Buh -"

"We have to tell Montgomery," Ryan said. "There's nothing else we can do."

"Tell me what?" the captain asked.

"Captain," Ryan gulped. "What are – what are you doing here?"

"I'm here to get the results from CSU from Beckett's apartment," Montgomery replied. "What are you guys doing here?"

"Discussing the autopsy report from our dead this morning," Lanie answered, as though challenging him to kick them out. "You know, the one Beckett didn't show up to."

"Okay, and?"

"Nothing that can tie anybody to the crime scene, no enemies, nobody even knew what he was doing down this end of town. His sister identified the body this morning."

"Anything strange about the body?"

"He was shot while he was unconscious," Lanie said. "He was lying on the ground. There's also traces of chloroform around his mouth."

"That's odd."

"Captain," Ryan said. "We think that this murder and Beckett's kidnapping might be related."

"Have you been investigating a case I specifically told you _not_ to investigate?" he asked.

"Possibly," said Esposito. "Lanie, did you get an ID on those prints?"

"What prints?"

"The prints I lifted off Beckett's phone," Lanie answered, as though she was about to murder the boys for telling the Captain what was going on. "And yes, I did. They belong to a Giselle Chambers. I looked her up: she had a traffic violation a few years ago, charges were dropped, though."

"What was the traffic violation?"

"Parked illegally. Here's the file."

"You three went behind my back and investigated something I told you not to," Montgomery said, disappointed. "And where did you get Beckett's phone from? It wasn't at her apartment when I got there."

"Captain," Esposito said. "Beckett is our friend. We're not just going to let you handle the case and not let us be in on it. You need us to help you, and we need you. Team?"

"Where did you get the phone from?"

"Castle took it," Ryan said. Lanie and Esposito stared at him in disgust.


	4. Chapter 4

A steady drip sounded from somewhere to her left, and a phone rang obnoxiously loudly about ten metres to her right. Kate Beckett was no fool: she kept quiet and and closed her eyes to heighten her hearing.

"Beckett," the strange woman answered the phone. It was slightly alarming to say the least; not only had the woman kidnapped her, but she was pretending to be her?

"Oh, hi, Rick," she heard the woman gush. "Oh, no, there's a bit of a problem with the part we need for the car – I'm still trying my hardest to get there."

Beckett rolled her eyes. She assumed this might be the fourth time that Castle had called her, and either Castle knew she'd been kidnapped and wasn't letting on, or he didn't know. And she went with the first idea, considering that she regularly referred to her partner as Castle, and not as Rick.

"Okay, yeah, I'll see you later," Giselle Chambers said in a passable imitation of Beckett's voice. She heard the woman hang the phone up and then the footsteps that echoed off the walls came closer and closer. Kate had opened her eyes, yet due to the lighting, she wasn't able to see quite as well as she'd hoped.

"Oh, you're awake," Giselle sneered. "He really likes you, you know. Richard. He's called three times to check on you today. Isn't that sweet?"

"Three?" Beckett asked, shrugging. She was trying desperately to keep her cool here. "Wasn't too far off then."

"I don't want him to like you," Chambers said, annoyed that Beckett had been so nonchalant about this. "He's supposed to like me. Understand?"

"Who are you?" Beckett questioned.

"I'm not the one tied up, sweetie," she answered. "You answer to me, not the other way around."

"Who are you to Rick?" she asked, not giving any indication that Castle might know that she wasn't really Beckett.

"We were going to get married once," she said.

Beckett raised her eyebrows. "Is that so?" she asked. "Why – uh, why didn't you two get married?"

The other woman froze up. "I've been stalking all four of you," she said, striking up a defence. "I know everything I need to know about you to be able to make one phone call, and have your lover boy come running."

"We are not together," Beckett sighed. "And once I get out of here, I can have you done for stalking."

"Oh, you don't actually think you're getting out of here alive, do you? How sweet. You, and Kevin and Javier - you're all going to die."

* * *

"Castle!" Roy Montgomery yelled, storming into Beckett's apartment. "What in the hell are you doing here? I told you to stay away from the case."

"Shhhhhh!" Castle hissed, motioning for him to be quiet. "I'm thinking."

"Castle. I know your theory."

"How?"

"I ran into Ryan and Esposito in the Morgue," he answered. "Why would you possibly make that connection?"

"Gut feeling," Castle shrugged. "And, also, nobody heard screams. What's one thing that can knock you out instantly without a sound?"

"Do you think it might be possible that Beckett was kidnapped inside her house?"

"I'm just going over that now, and the answer is no. Do you remember the Scott Dunn case? How he blew up her apartment? I stayed with her the night before, sleeping on the couch, and she informed me that she slept with a gun. If she had heard anything out of the ordinary inside the house, she would have been able to stop it."

"So? What if she was in the shower?"

"Her gun's not here, which means she has it. Which means she was out of the shower when she was taken. Besides, I don't think she showered this morning."

"What makes you think that?"

"There's no trace of water in the bathtub?" he answered, realising how awkward and slightly stalker-ish this sounded.

"You're sounding really creepy, Castle."

"I'm just going over everything I can think of," he said. "Do you have any more information that I can work with?"

"Well, the prints you ordered from Beckett's phone – which I need to talk to you about – came from one Giselle Chambers. Picked her up -"

"Giselle Chambers?" Castle asked, suddenly worried.

"You know her?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "She proposed to me once after knowing me for less than a month. Said she was head over heels in love with me... I turned her down, never saw her again after that. And if Giselle was the one that took her... that means she's after me, not Beckett. But then, why would he take Beckett?"

"Please," Esposito said, walking into the room. "Everybody knows you two like each other. And the easiest way to get to you is to take someone you love – extremely common with stalkers and kidnappers."

"Love?" Castle sputtered.

"I mean, you know, care about. I reviewed the security footage again, Captain, and there's no camera for Beckett's hallway. However, a woman was seen dragging an unconscious body down to the parking garage."

"Which would help if we knew what kind of car Chambers drove," Castle growled.

"How long ago was your relationship with Chambers?" Montgomery asked.

"If you could call it that, my relationship with her was a year and a half ago, and it only lasted about three weeks."

"And then you..."

"Well, I refused to marry her, she left peacefully, albeit upset, I finished _Storm Fall_ and started shadowing Beckett. You know the rest."

"Was there ever any indication that Chambers was dangerous?" Esposito asked.

Castle furrowed his brow and looked around. "Where's Ryan?" he asked.

Esposito spun around. "He was right behind me a few minutes ago – said he had to go to the bathroom."

"He's not back yet?"

Without waiting for an answer, Castle called Beckett. Ignoring the two rings in his pocket, he waited for it to go to voicemail. "Beckett," came the answer.

"Beckett? Do you know where you are?"

"Castle? I don't know – it's dark. Water dripping. Why?"

"We're trying to find you, and we think Ryan's just been kidnapped. Has she caught on to us yet?"

"No, she hasn't."

"How did you answer the phone?"

Beckett, though Castle couldn't see, blushed and closed her eyes. "Using my nose."

Castle grinned. "I'd love to see that."

"Gotta go," she whispered, and the call ended.

He turned to see Montgomery and Esposito staring at him, eyebrows raised. "That was Beckett – the actual Beckett," he clarified. "She just confirmed what we already know: dripping water, and she said it was dark. If she was in a basement, there'd be like, a small window to the outside world, wouldn't there?"

"It's unlikely she's in the sewer," Esposito said. "Somebody would have noticed one woman dragging another down a manhole."

Castle ignored all the sexual references he could tie into that statement. "So where is she?"

* * *

"I want a security detail on Castle and Esposito at all times," Montgomery ordered. "If anybody so much as approaches them, you start closing in. Is that understood? These are people that are safe."

Castle and Esposito sat down at their work stations, mulling over the recent development – if you could call another friend and colleague being kidnapped a development. Both were staring absently in the direction of the murder board, when Beckett's desk phone rang.

"Castle," he answered it distractedly.

"How did I know you'd be at my desk?" Giselle's voice answered. Obviously she was losing her ability to imitate Beckett effectively. Or maybe Castle was just getting better at noticing the differences between Chambers' cheap imitation and the actual Beckett.

"Oh, I don't know, maybe you know me too well," Castle replied carefully, waving at Esposito to get him to trace the call. "Where are you? I haven't seen you all day."

"Why Rick?" she asked. "Miss me?"

"A little bit," he shrugged. "Are you at home? Maybe I could swing by and visit? I'll bring Chinese food, your favourite."

Esposito nodded, and Castle tried to get off the phone as soon as possible. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes!"

"Rick!" Giselle yelled, but Castle hung up the phone too quickly.

"Where's the call from?" Castle asked, eager to get going. In fact, he didn't even wait for the answer, but grabbed his coat and walked out of the precinct.

"Castle! Where are you going?"

"To Beckett's apartment," Castle replied, "where Chambers thinks I'm going."

"So why are you going to go there? She's after you, I hope you realise."

"Yes, she is after me," Castle said. "And so I'm going to go. Meanwhile, you're going to make sure Beckett and Ryan get out of wherever they are alive. Do you understand me?" Castle fixed him with a stare that Esposito knew meant that if Castle didn't have his way, he might be involved in another murder.

"Understood," Esposito nodded, and walked back into the station.

* * *

Giselle stalked angrily into her basement, where she held Kevin Ryan and Kate Beckett. In a rage, she ripped the cloth from around Beckett's mouth, clawing some skin off in the process, and pulled her face close to hers.

"You and I are going on a little field trip," Chambers growled. "Your boyfriend wants to have Chinese with you in your apartment, and I don't want him to know I've got you just yet."

"Cute, but my boyfriend is in Africa, and he's not coming back until next week."

"Oh, really? So why did the two of you kiss last week?"

"What?" Beckett asked, her mouth dropping open in shock. Ryan started roaring with laughter.

"Those two? Kiss? Please, if that had happened, I'd know about it."

"You really have been stalking us, haven't you?" Beckett realised. "The only people that could have possibly known about that are me, Castle, and the guy that I clocked over the head, who we arrested. How did you find out?"

"Wait, you mean...?" Ryan started, but stopped after Beckett glared at him.

"The building across the street," Chambers smiled darkly. "It looked like you two really meant it. Otherwise you wouldn't have gone back for more. How long were you waiting to do that, Detective Beckett?"

Beckett wished more than anything that her arms and legs were not tied behind her back. Nothing would give her more pleasure right now than beating the woman that knew too much about her relationship with Castle to a pulp. Instead, she closed her eyes and let out a deep breath.

"If we don't leave now, he'll get there before us," Beckett informed her. "And you wouldn't that now, would you?"

Giselle locked eyes with her for a moment, then put the cloth back around her mouth and dragged Beckett from the room.

* * *

**Hey guys, easily not my best chapter. Sooo now that Ryan's found out about the kiss how long do you think it'll be until Esposito and Lanie find out too?  
**

**Well, I know this is hardly pertinent to my writing, but I got a kitten on Sunday night, and his name is Marco. He's been messing around and crawling up into a ball on my laptop when he's not getting attention. The other day, in a matter of about five seconds, he managed to turn my music on, mute my sound, retweet something, open up my dashboard and, lastly, translate from Portuguese to English. **

**He also managed to get rid of a whole section of chapter eight of this fic last night, so I'm currently working on redoing that again, because the first time I did it, I thought it was going too fast, and I realised that it wasn't really where I wanted it to end up anyway.**

**Anyway, if you have any suggestions, questions, comments, advice, constructive criticism, be sure to let me know. You can review the story, or private message if you like, but I would love to heat it.**

**Love, gabiellexx **


	5. Chapter 5

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Captain Montgomery asked Castle over the phone. Castle was sitting on Beckett's sofa, two steaming hot plates of leftover Chinese food on the table in front of him, waiting for Chambers to walk through the door.

"Of course not, but I have to try," he whispered. "Ooh, I have to go."

Castle hung up the phone just as Chambers turned the lock in the door and let her and her hostage in. "Now, remember, Katherine, don't do anything stupid, understood?"

"Oh, she won't do anything stupid," Castle said, and Chambers spun around to face him. "Nobody's going to do anything stupid. Unless it's me. In fact, we're all just going to sit down and talk. Giselle, would you?"

She narrowed her eyes at him then, keeping one eye on him and one eye on Beckett, she took a seat across from the writer and folded her arms.

"Beckett?" Castle asked, offering her the seat next to him.

Kate looked warily from Castle to her captor and then took the seat he offered.

"When did you figure it out?" Chambers asked Castle.

"Introductions first," he said, trying to stretch this out as long as he could so that the police could get Ryan out of Chambers' basement – where they call had traced to. "Katherine Beckett, this is my ex-girlfriend, Giselle Antonia Chambers. Giselle, I believe you're already familiar with Kate."

"A little too familiar," Beckett added, narrowing her eyes. Her eyes then flicked down to the hand Castle had injured last week. "How is it?"

He glanced down. "Still a little painful," he shrugged, unconsciously making a fist and relaxing his palm again.

"Are you going to answer my question? When did you figure out Kate had been kidnapped?"

"Please, Beckett not show up to a crime scene? Plus, you were careless. You said she was stuck in traffic – but there was not a sound of traffic anywhere near you. Also, she never, ever, calls me Rick."

He sincerely hoped that Beckett wouldn't remember last week when she'd asked him why he kept coming back, and had unknowingly called him by his first name.

"On the ball from the start... just as perceptive as I remember you to be," she smiled softly. "We were going to get married, Richard," she sighed. "It was all planned out – the carriage ride, the dress, the flowers... And then you had to go and chicken out, didn't you?"

"I had no idea you were that serious with her," Beckett hissed. "Why did you never mention her?"

"Giselle, you'd known me a month before you asked me to marry you, a question which I respectfully declined. And an offer I will accept if you let Detective Beckett go. I'll never speak to her again if you like."

"Really?" Chambers asked, excitement seeping into her voice. "You'd do that for me?"

"Yes," Castle said, the same moment his stomach dropped and he winced. "I would."

"Castle, don't do it," Beckett said, immediately pleading. "Giving a kidnapper what they want isn't right."

"Do you remember the Candela case that we worked on together?" Castle asked. "How we gave the kidnapper what they wanted. You said it was the right thing to do then – why not now?"

"Because what you're offering to do is ridiculous," Beckett said to him. "You'd run away and get married to her, to stop her from going after me?"

"And Ryan, and Esposito," Castle nodded. "Yes."

"And you'd never speak to us again."

"Yes, I would," Castle said, then he turned to Giselle. "Would you give us a moment, please?" he asked, then grabbed Beckett's hand and pulled her into the bedroom.

"What are you doing?" she hissed at him. "She's going to try and get away now."

"You're hurt," Castle noted, walking to the bathroom, which he knew from his earlier inspection of the place was where she kept the first aid kit. He grabbed an antiseptic swab and dabbed at the scratch marks on her face. "Are you okay?"

"She's getting away, Castle."

"No, she's not. Montgomery has a detail on me, every single one of them knows what Chambers looks like, and they've been ordered to take her in as soon as they see her. No doubt he's told some of them to stake out the apartment too. Now answer the question – are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she said, unconsciously flexing her wrist, an action which Castle picked up on and grabbed it.

"You've been tied up," he observed. "And gagged."

"You'd be a great detective," she told him sarcastically.

"I already am," he smiled jokingly, grabbing a bandage from the first aid kit and wrapping it around the wounds on her left wrist. "And so are you."

"What if they don't catch her, Castle? You said you'd run away with her – why?"

"To keep you safe," he said, not daring to meet her eyes. "As long as you're safe, I'm happy."

"No, you're not," Beckett said. "Don't think I don't know why you broke up with Gina. I was completely safe then, and yet you weren't happy."

"No, I wasn't," Castle said. "I was never happy with Gina, and you know that."

"So why did you take her to the Hamptons with you?"

"Because you were going away with Demming," he retorted.

She choked in a small breath and pulled her wrist away.

"I broke up with Demming," she said softly, trying to control her emotions, "because I was going to take you up on your offer. I was just about to say it when Gina comes bursting in and you go off with her. Why do you think I was so mad at you when you came back? Why do you think I was making such a big deal out of you not calling? Every day that I didn't see you, I imagined lying right beside you in the Hamptons while you finished your book. I imagined that I would come to work every day to see you sitting beside my desk with a cup of coffee. I didn't date anybody while you were away, and do you know why? Because I was waiting to see where we stood. I was waiting for us to be good."

"If you were so caught up over me, why did you start dating motorcycle boy?"

"Because we were back to normal, Castle, and you were still dating Gina. Oh, God, why am I even telling you this?"

"I only took Gina to the Hamptons to make you jealous," Castle blurted out. "I only hated Demming because he was getting all cozy with you, and when you announced you were going away for a weekend with him I was devastated. That's why I decided to spend the Summer in the Hamptons. I didn't want to watch you date another guy."

"You're okay with me dating Josh," Beckett pointed out.

"You really believe that? I'm nowhere near okay with it. But I'm sucking it up, because I know I was wrong when I went out with Gina to get back at you. Plus, he's never here anyway."

"Castle," Beckett said warningly, and unconsciously glanced down at his lips looked down. He looked down too, and realised they were nose to nose, in Beckett's bathroom.

Possessed by something out of his control, Castle cupped Beckett's cheek and kissed her passionately but not aggressively on the mouth. Just like he had last week, he pulled away and stared at her, wide-eyed. She shook her head, confused, and closed her eyes. Then, just like last week, she pulled him back, and their mouths warred with each other. They spun around, continuing their exchange, until there was a dull 'thud' and Castle pulled apart and swore.

Beckett looked at the cause, and laughed softly to herself, biting her lip and looking apologetically up at him. "Are you okay?"

"No," Castle said, biting down on his own lip, trying not to swear again.

"May I?" she asked, gesturing to his shirt. She lifted it up just far enough to see where he'd collided painfully with the edge of the sink. A large red welt was appearing across his abdomen.

"Wait here," she said, trying not to laugh. "I'll get you some ice."

Castle smiled slightly to himself, then followed her out into the main living area. Not surprisingly, Chambers was nowhere to be seen, which he'd expected. However, he couldn't shake off the feeling that she hadn't left the apartment, which is why he'd followed Beckett out in the first place.

"I don't have any ice," Beckett sighed. "I do, however, have this."

Castle eyed the bag of frozen peas she'd just pulled out of the freezer. "It'll do," he shrugged. "You know, in _Heat Wave_ we do the ice bit first, then we go to the bedroom. It's like we're going in reverse."

Beckett rolled her eyes. "_Heat Wave_ is also a work of fiction, and in it, we have sex."

"Amazing sex," Castle grinned.

"It's not going to happen," Beckett assured him. "At least – not today."

Castle raised his eyebrows at her, picking up on the half-teasing, half-truthful nature in her voice. It was the same one she used whenever she was teasing him - which, lately, had been nowhere near as much as when they first started working together. Although, the tattoo comment from a few weeks before still had him wondering...

"So tell me more about this Giselle Chambers," Beckett said. "The more we know about her, the easier it will be to catch her."

"'I'll tell you back at the station," Castle said, grasping her hand and holding the peas to his stomach in the other. "Come on, we have to get out of here."

* * *

"Ryan?" Beckett asked when Castle took her to the morgue so that Lanie could look her over and see if she was okay. "How did you get out?"

"We got a trace on where Chambers was calling from," Esposito said, bringing Beckett a copy of the file. "Castle's idea to get Chambers to go to your place so we could get a task force in to get you and Ryan out. Though, obviously, Chambers took you with her, which meant that we only had to get Ryan out."

"Chambers wasn't picked up by my detail," Castle said, "which means she's still out there, and likely to make another move at any moment. We need to all stay in the one place."

"If we all stay here, she's just going to go after other people that mean something to you. She won't leave you alone. She told me that she wanted you, and she'd kill other people to get to you."

"Did she threaten you?" Castle asked, his temper and concern rising.

Beckett stared at him, half flattered, half angry. "She said that Ryan, Esposito and I were going to be dead by the end of it." She finally whispered.

"That's it, the four of you are definitely staying in here with me," Lanie declared. "I am not letting anything happen to you."

"Where's Jenny?" Castle asked suddenly.

"She in Jersey shopping for a wedding dress with her sister," Ryan said. "Don't worry, I've already told her to stay with at least one person at all times and to not leave Jersey until I say it's safe. Esposito has got troopers looking out for her."

"What about Alexis and Martha?" Beckett asked. Castle was slightly surprised at Beckett's concern for his mother and daughter, until he remembered that she'd always been looking out for them and keeping them updated.

"They're up in the coffee room," Esposito answered. "Montgomery organised it as soon as he got off the phone to you."

"Lanie, can you take a look at Castle's abdomen? See if there'll be any lasting damage?"

"Why, what happened to it?" Ryan asked, raising his eyebrows. Beckett looked at him and narrowed her eyes.

"Lanie, Esposito, you mind giving us a minute alone with Ryan?" Beckett asked, smiling dangerously.

"Uh, yeah, of course," Lanie said, dragging Esposito outside. "Let us know when we can come back in please."

"Yeah," Beckett grinned, and got up from her seat on one of the observation benches. She walked threateningly towards Ryan, and pinned him against the wall.

"You mention what you know to anybody, and I will personally make sure that nobody ever finds your body, is that understood, Detective Ryan?"

"Clear," Ryan gulped.

"You so much as suggest it -"

"I understand, Detective Beckett," he said, nodding. "Nobody will hear of it."

"Good," Beckett smiled. "You can come back in!" she added to Lanie and Esposito outside.

"Anyway, I was looking at Castle's abdomen?" Lanie asked as she walked back over to the group. "May I?" she asked, gesturing towards his shirt.

He looked uneasy for a moment until Beckett raised an eyebrow at him and he nodded.

"Youch, Beckett, what the hell have you two been up to?" she asked, intrigued. "I can't give you more information without an ultrasound."

"Do it," Beckett said. "Meanwhile, I'll work on tracking down Chambers."

"No," Castle and Lanie said at the same time.

"It's too dangerous," Castle continued. "She's already nabbed you once, it won't be hard to do it again. Especially considering we have no idea where she is, and you don't have your gun."

She furrowed her brow in an attempt to look confused. "Where's my spare?" she asked. "Chambers took my normal one. Where's my backup?"

"It wasn't at your apartment," Castle told her. "At least, not when I swept, and believe me, I looked through it so thoroughly. I didn't know you had black lingerie."

A smile played at her lips at the teasing before she stared at him, disgusted. "Screw you, Castle," she said, and backed away from them.

"You're not leaving," Esposito said. "We're locked in here until Montgomery says it's safe to go outside. So, looks like we best get to know each other."

* * *

**Hey guys, how have you been? Me, I'm still working on the same chapter I was the last time I updated. (And it was a good thing I read through this one again, because I just realised I used the same conversation later on. Whoops! Looks like I'll have to change that.)**

**Anyway, I'm really happy that I've got the attention span to work on this story for more than a few days before giving up. I'm going to try and finish most of it this weekend, in between work and cleaning my room and stuff, because I have my very first day of uni classes on Monday (three days away) and I'm officially freaking out. And because of the course I'm doing and because of how full on it is, and the fact that I have to do at least twenty hours of work per week, I'm going to be hard pressed to find time to write between that, but I'm going to do my best. I really, really want this story to be done soon so I can stop losing sleep over it (three and half hours in the past 36) and so that you don't have to wait for new chapters anymore!**

**Rambling over. Opinions, criticism (constructive kind only), questions, advice, suggestions, just want to say hi, maybe blow off some steam - press the review button. I try and reply to every single one of you (sorry if I didn't reply to you last chapter - my email's being dodgy and I'm not sure I've read all of them yet. I'm going to get my mum to help me out with it because she's the one that set it up) because I just love hearing what you have to say.**

**Much love, and stay safe,**

**gabiellexx**


	6. Chapter 6

Chambers was furious. Not only had Kate Beckett escaped with Richard Castle, who was supposed to be with _her_, but she knew that by now they'd be safe and sound at the 12th precinct. Her hiding spot had payed off, though, as nobody suspected her having stayed the in the apartment. It didn't cross her mind for a second that they'd gotten out of the apartment because one, or both, of them had a sneaking suspicion that Chambers had never left.

Confident, she left her hiding spot of the linen closet, and walked out to find that she was incredibly hungry. She eyed the two plates of Chinese food that were still there, and decided that she'd have just a bite to eat. When she was done eating, not daring to leave the apartment just yet, she decided to find out a little bit more about her subject. A lot of it she already knew – now she was going through the record and book collections, finding out what type of food she liked to eat, and realising how organised she actually was.

Then, when she was bored and it was dark, she decided that it was safe to leave the apartment. The security at the door had dispersed a long time ago, and so the way out was clear. She crept down to the parking garage and hopped into her vehicle, turning the key to start it up. Still seething about Beckett's escape, she drove out dangerously onto the busy streets of New York.

* * *

"You'll survive, Castle, just don't do anything stupid," Lanie told him after the results from the ultrasound came back. Beckett sighed in relief, and then lay down on the bench, exhausted after her day. Lanie left to go back to Esposito and Ryan, who were giving Castle and Beckett half the room.

"Are you okay, Beckett?" Castle asked, not getting up from his spot. He was afraid that if he didn't keep his distance, something like what happened in the bathroom might happen again.

"I'm just a little tired," she shrugged, yawning and rolling over to look at him.

"Beckett, we need to talk."

"About what?" she asked.

"You know about what," he said, holding her gaze.

"No, we don't need to talk about that," she said firmly. "In fact, let's pretend it didn't even happen."

"Yeah, like we can really do that," he replied sarcastically. "We didn't talk about it last time, and look what happened."

"Last time, we were trying to get Esposito and Ryan out of danger," she hissed, sitting up again and facing him. "Last week, we were undercover, I'll have you remember, and it meant nothing."

"It meant something, and you know it," he said. "Deny it all you want, Detective Beckett, but you know it's true. And it's the same as today – it felt the same."

"Castle, I do not need this right now, okay? Right now, all I want to do is go to sleep."

"Not in my examination room you don't," Lanie called out. She hadn't realised her voice had been rising. "What are you two talking about over there?"

"Nothing," they both answered, both still looking at each other intently.

"Montgomery's set up the gym for us to sleep in," Esposito said.

"Come on," Castle said, getting his coat from the rack near the door. "I would like to see my daughter."

Beckett glanced at him, then rolled her eyes and followed him, keeping a safe distance for as long as she could. Then it was the elevator ride. They made a point to stay as far away from each other as possible during the ride up to homicide, and when they finally got there, Castle stayed back a few moment so that Beckett could go out.

He was bear tackled as soon as he stepped out himself.

"Ow," he winced. Alexis had gotten him exactly where he'd hit the bathroom sink back at Beckett's apartment. "That really – it's good to see you, Alexis."

"I'm glad you're alive, dad," she said. "Montgomery told us what happened. How could you be so stupid?"

"Ryan and Beckett were in danger," he said as his mother came over. "Mother," he said, smiling.

"What if something had happened to you?" Martha asked.

"So you're not happy," Castle gulped. "Can we move somewhere less... open... for you to yell at me. How about we go to the gym?"

"Let's go!" Alexis said brightly, dragging her father behind her. "We've already set up camp," she confessed when they arrived, expecting her father to be upset that they'd set up a tent without him.

"Excellent," Castle beamed. "Now, mother, what was it you wanted to berate me for?"

"You were absolutely foolish!" she yelled. "You went in there without a plan, without any backup! What if she'd decided to shoot you or something?"

"I did have a plan – it was to distract Chambers for long enough to get Ryan and Beckett out of their temporary prison," Castle explained. "It just so happened that Chambers brought Beckett with her, so I had to revise my plan slightly. But what matters is that we got out of there alive."

"Barely," she scoffed. Castle remembered that his mother was still angry at him from last week when he'd gone to see Retired Detective Raglan with Beckett – the day Retired Detective Raglan was shot.

"Mother, how about we continue this at home, when we're allowed back?" Castle suggested. After a glare from his mother, he walked over to Beckett and sat down beside her.

"Montgomery ordered food, want some?" she asked, offering him a plate of pizza. "It's not the best, but at least it's something to eat."

Castle took a bite, then screwed up his face. "You're right, that isn't the best," he said, chewing slowly in the hopes that it might get better. "Anyway, I have some things that belong to you," he said, putting down the paper plate and reaching into his pocket. Keeping his eyes on Beckett, he pulled out her badge and phone.

"How did you get these?" she asked, taking them from him. Both of them noticed their hands graze as she took them from him, and both tried desperately to ignore it. They couldn't have a repeat of what happened in the bathroom.

"I took them from your apartment before forensics got there and had Lanie get the prints from your phone. That's how we figured out where you were being held and by whom."

"You withheld evidence?" she asked, narrowing her eyes and squaring her jaw.

"Yes," he nodded. "But if I hadn't, you wouldn't have been found. So really, you shouldn't be angry at me."

She stared at him, then loosened a little. "Thank you, Castle," she said, pocketing them herself. "You've saved my life too many times to count."

"Don't mention it," he shrugged. "It's what... friends do."

"How's your hand, from last week?" she asked suddenly.

He held it up, still in it's bandage, and extended it to her. Hesitantly, she started unwrapping it to look at the wounds still on his knuckles. She smiled slightly to herself and bit down on her bottom lip.

"You know you didn't need to punch that guy, don't you?" she asked him, putting the bandage back on.

"It felt like I did," Castle said.

"So, your mum yelled at you last week, huh?"

"She thinks I should have stopped shadowing you a long time ago," he said. "She was worried because she realised it could have just as easily been me who got shot."

"I felt the same," Beckett confessed.

"But you're good at hiding your emotions," Castle reminded her. "Well, most of the time. You would have been a good actress."

"I am a good actress," Beckett said, narrowing her eyes. "Are you saying I shouldn't have been a cop?"

"No, I'm not saying that at all. You made both of my arrests very enjoyable. And you're amazing at your job."

Beckett cracked a smile at that.

"Chambers just used her credit card," Montgomery announced, poking his head in.

Castle and Beckett glanced at each other, and then, together, they got up from where they were sitting and followed Montgomery out.

"Where?" Beckett asked.

"Corner store near her house," Montgomery said, confused.

"Maybe a little bit of stress eating?" Castle suggested. "I mean, you know, I got away with Beckett, which means she didn't get what she wanted. The best thing to eat after you don't get something you want is icecream. Everybody knows that."

"Alright, Castle, let's go."

"Oh no, you, Detective Beckett, are not going anywhere," Castle reminded her, holding her arm. "And neither am I. I would rather you be safe and her at large than you injured and her in prison."

"That's very chivalrous of you, but I want you to remember that _I'm_ in charge here."

"Actually, I'm in charge here," Captain Montgomery said, "and Castle's right. The two of you are staying right here. FBI's on the case, they're in chargea."

"So – where are they?" Castle asked. "Last time FBI worked with us, they invaded."

Montgomery answered. "I told them to keep their distance. I've been collaborating with them, and I'm leaving now to go and apprehend Chambers. You two are staying right here. Do I need to handcuff you?"

"No, sir, I completely understand," Beckett said, her face falling. "We'll see you when we get back."

"Good," he said, then grabbed his badge and his gun and left the precinct.

"Beckett," Castle said before she moved. "I know what you're thinking, and I am only going to say this: neither of us have a gun."

"Point taken," she nodded. "Let's go."

"Captain said you're not allowed to leave the precinct," the officer at the door of the elevator said, holding his arm out to stop Beckett from entering.

"I'm just going down to the morgue," she said. "My friends are down there."

The officer raised his eyebrows at his partner, and then they both nodded, letting the two of them down.

* * *

"Where are we going?" Castle asked, confused. As soon as the elevator door closed on the two of them, Beckett had hit the button for the ground floor, which would be where the lift stopped first. After they'd hopped out, Beckett had purposely started walking, leaving Castle bewildered and a little bit behind. "It kind of feels like we're on the way back to your apartment."

"That's because we are," Beckett said. "Come on, I'll show you where I keep my spare gun."

"That's all well and good," he said, easily keeping pace with her, "but we'll need two guns. You've only got one spare one."

"Yeah, I know," she shrugged. "But it looks like you're not the only one that's good at withholding things. Chambers never took my boots off."

"And you keep a gun in a holster on your ankle," Castle remembered. "So, you'd give me your spare gun so we can go and apprehend a criminal that we were told not to?"

Beckett thought for a moment. "Yeah, pretty much. I trust you, Castle," she said. "And I don't trust too many people anymore."

"I'll take that as a very high compliment."

"You should," she smiled. "Now come on, we're not going to get to Chambers in time if we keep dawdling."

"You're not going to have to," a pleasantly pissed off voice chimed from behind them, causing the two of them to pause, turn around slowly, and find themselves face to face with none other than Giselle Chambers herself.

"You know the amazing thing about my credit card, Detective Beckett?" Giselle asked.

"You can buy things with money you don't have?" she replied, stating the exact purpose of a credit card and not expecting her answer to be right.

"No," Chambers said, narrowing her eyes. "It's that you don't need to sign with it – you can just use a PIN."

"You got somebody else to use your card while you waited for us," Castle said, shaking his head and cursing himself for his stupidity. "How did you know we'd go after them?"

"Richard, I know you. You're not going to miss out on any of the fun. Of course you're going to make sure you go after whoever you're not supposed to."

"Not true," Richard said, thinking. "There was that one time when I stayed in the car when I was told. Though that is very inhumane."

Beckett bit her bottom lip, smiling slightly. She remembered the one time when he'd actually stayed in the car: when Special Agent Jordan Shaw had told him to. It was also the one time he'd apprehended a suspect with a taser – a proud day for him.

"You follow her around like you're some sort of puppy." Chambers spoke directly to Castle, completely ignoring Beckett's presence. This allowed her to move around so that she was facing Castle, and Chambers' back, and she texted the Captain. _Chambers fooled you. Near the precinct. She's with us._ "You're transfixed with her. Why weren't you ever transfixed with me?"

"Because you're creepy, and Beckett's not," he replied, bored, but with a sort of intensity that he couldn't describe. "And I am not transfixed with her."

"Most people would have denied that first," she said, licking her lips seductively. "You know, we could have been great together. Two amazing people like us. Your offer still stands, you know. You come with me, and I'll leave Katherine alone for the rest of her life."

Castle looked passed Chambers to his partner, who shook her head, warning him not to do it. Castle looked down and sighed. "You have a deal," he said. "I go with you, and Beckett, Ryan and Esposito are left alone."

"Of course," she smiled.

"Okay. I need a moment alone with Beckett. Then I'll come."

Chambers narrowed her eyes slightly, glancing between the two of them, then nodded and started walking down the street.

"You're being stupid," Beckett hissed when Chambers was out of earshot. "She won't like it, knowing that I'm still alive when you're with her. It'll be a distraction. One day, she'll sneak off into the night and kill us in our sleep."

"Hey, I'm not going to let that happen," he said, tucking a strand of hair behind Beckett's ear. "You just need to trust me. You do trust me, right?"

Beckett closed her eyes. She'd told him less than three minutes ago that she trusted him. She couldn't take it back now. "I just don't want you to do anything stupid, and at the moment, you're doing the definition of stupid."

"Okay, listen carefully, because she's going to come back soon. I need your handcuffs."

Beckett started to protest.

"You're never going to get her if you don't give me the cuffs. I could always go to our favourite bondage store, but that might take a while."

Beckett flushed as she remembered that case, and, though hesitantly, she pulled a pair of handcuffs out of her pocket and handed them to him, savouring every moment that her skin touched his.

"Don't do anything more stupid than this," she whispered to him, and kissed him lightly on the cheek before letting go and watching him walk off. And though she knew that he was doing it for her, she couldn't help but feel a bit of a pang in her chest because the woman that he was walking off with into the night was somebody else.


	7. Chapter 7

To say that Captain Montgomery was furious was an understatement. But, surprisingly, it wasn't his wrath was that the low point of Detective Kate Beckett's evening. It wasn't watching Castle walk away. It wasn't knowing that she could have stopped Giselle and didn't. No, the worst part of Beckett's evening was facing Martha Rodgers and Alexis Castle. In fact, she didn't even speak to them. She took one look at them trough the doorway leading into the break room, and her eyes immediately fogged up in tears and she took the elevator to the morgue downstairs. She knew that even though Ryan, Esposito and Lanie would internally think that she was an idiot and that she should have done _something_, they wouldn't say anything to her. Nothing about what had happened, anyway. They'd leave it alone – because they were her friends, and they knew that this would be what she needed.

"Beckett," Ryan said, girnning as she walked into the morgue. "How's it -"

Esposito saw the look on her face. "What's wrong?" he asked. "Where's Castle?"

"Gone," she said. She'd gotten rid of all the tears in the elevator, and she hadn't walked through the doors to the morgue until she was certain her face was dry. Sure, it was obvious that she'd been crying, but she wasn't crying now. She looked almost like an empty shell now, walking silently across the room and taking a seat on an empty examination table.

"What do you mean, gone?" Ryan asked, but when Beckett didn't answer him, he turned to Esposito and Lanie. "Does she mean, like, dead?"

"Ryan, if Castle was dead, he'd be on my slab," Lanie whispered to him. "She means he's left."

"Why would he do that?"

"He's done it before. Remember, the Summer... the Hamptons."

"I can still hear you," Beckett murmured. Lanie had tried to be quiet about it, knowing that it was still a sore spot with her best friend.

"He wouldn't leave like that again – not after happened last week," Ryan said, attempting to get some sort of reaction out of his boss. Nothing.

"Where's he gone, honey?"

She shook herself. "He went with Chambers," she said. "She said that if he went with her, she'd leave us alone for the rest of our lives."

"He believed that?" Esposito asked, then looked between the other two detectives. "Hold on, what happened last week? What'd I miss?"

"Of course he didn't believe that," Ryan said. "Castle's not an idiot."

"He asked me to give him my handcuffs. I suppose he's planning on baiting her for us, I guess."

"Well then, why are you upset?"

"Because he's risking his life for me," she said. "He does it too much, and it's really, really stupid of him."

"Or chivalrous," Lanie shrugged.

"Or both," Ryan sniffed.

"Wait, so he just left with Chambers? Did he say where they were going?" Esposito asked, irritated that they'd been ignoring him.

"Probably off to get married or something," Kate said. "What am I going to do, guys? One second he was there, and then he was gone. And she isn't right for him."

"Of course not, because she's a psycho killer/kidnapper/stalker type. And she's not you."

She looked up to see Ryan, Esposito and Lanie all staring at her, yet all trying to avoid eye contact. "We're not dating. Ryan, say a word -"

"Ryan?" Esposito asked. "What do you know, and why haven't you told us?"

"Beckett and Castle... kissed. And before you get angry at me, I only found out earlier today!"

"It was a distraction," she said, closing her eyes so that she wouldn't see their faces. "We had to distract the guard somehow so that we could get into the building and get the two of you out. As soon as the guy turned away, I clocked him over the head."

"U-huh," Ryan smirked. "Sure it was. A distraction."

"Keep telling yourself that, Beckett," Esposito winked. "So, what are we going to do to get Castle back?"

"Nothing," she said. "He made his choice, and we have to respect that. Just like when he went to the Hamptons. He chose to go, and we had to let him."

Esposito sighed. "Beckett, you never got over Castle leaving to go to the Hamptons with Gina. We saw you, every single day, staring at his empty chair. You didn't drink any coffee at all. You died a little bit inside with every mention of him. You're not sitting here, telling us that you're okay with Castle leaving with that psychopath, and expecting us to believe it, are you?"

"I don't need you to believe it," Beckett said controlling her breathing.

"You need _you_ to believe it," Ryan said. Beckett, looking up at them, nodded slightly.

* * *

Castle took Giselle Chambers back to his apartment and told her his conditions. Then, he cooked the two of them dinner, and they went to bed; separately, as per Castle's conditions. He had stipulated that, for at least the first few nights of their arrangement, she would stay in the guest room. It had nothing at all to do with organising his room like he had told her, and it had everything to do with him planning out his baiting.

"You're the one sacrificing here," Giselle had told him when he laid out his conditions. "I make the rules, not you."

"That's all very well and good," Castle had replied, "but remember that I can easily leave you and go back to Detective Beckett. So you have to give me what I want, or you don't have me."

Giselle seemed unable to refute that logic. And, now, resignedly, let Castle lead her to the guest room. As soon as he was confident that she would be comfortable, he shut the door on her and locked it from the outside. As an extra precaution, he also handcuffed the door to the wall-mounted light so that she couldn't get out. Then, making sure the key to the handcuffs were in his pocket, he wandered to his study.

Here, though he pulled out his computer, he never intended to write. He pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket and typed in Beckett's number. His thumb lingered over the call button for near on a minute before he pressed the button that would lock the phone. Instead, he dialled his daughter's number.

She picked up on the first ring.

"Dad," she said, worried. "Where are you? We saw Beckett come back, but you weren't with her. We thought you'd been shot or something."

"If I had been shot, Beckett would have told you," Castle said, trying to keep calm. "I'm fine, Alexis. You're still at the precinct?"

"Yeah," Alexis said. "Do you want to talk to Beckett?"

"No," he said. "No, I can't do that. Alexis, promise me that you and my mother will do whatever Captain Montgomery asks you to do."

Alexis, worried, creased her eyebrows together. "Of course," she said. She could tell when her dad was being serious and when he wasn't. And now, he was being the exact definition of serious. "Dad, what's going on?"

"What did Beckett tell you?"

"What do you – she hasn't told us anything, neither has Montgomery. She just sort of looked at us through the window and left. Dad -"

"It's just the case that we're working on," he said, glancing at the study door as though he expected Giselle to walk through it at any moment, despite the handcuffs on the handle of her room. "I'll talk to you soon, okay?"

"Dad!" she shouted into the receiver, but he'd already hung up.

* * *

"Beckett," Esposito said the next morning, nudging her awake. They'd gone up to the gym when Lanie had closed the morgue for the night, and Beckett had somehow nodded off. Though Esposito and Ryan would never say it, they'd heard her crying herself to sleep.

"Hmm?" Beckett asked, yawning as she lifted herself up from her make-shift bed. "What's up?"

"We've got a case," he said. "Ninth and Broadway."

She nodded and grabbed a spare change of clothes that she'd been allowed to grab from her apartment last night. As she walked to the bathroom, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and pressed the speed dial number for Castle. Just as she was about to call him, however, she remembered the deal. Pausing in the hallway, she cancelled it and put her phone back into her pocket.

She walked back into the gym to find Esposito and Ryan waiting for her. "Guys, I'm sorry," she said, looking between them. "I can't do it." The event of the previous day had finally hit her, and she sat down on her bed and started shaking.

"If you need us, don't be afraid to call," Esposito said.

Beckett smiled at him in gratitude. Esposito had always been the more caring and perceptive one of her teammates, and she was glad that he was still there for her. Ryan, though still having her best interests at heart, was a little more insensitive than his partner. She smiled after them as she watched them leave, and then looked around the room, not really seeing anything.

After looking around blankly for about five minutes, she decided that being at the station reminded her too much of Castle, and she decided to go home. Montgomery wasn't in yet, so it was rather easy to leave. She still hadn't spoken to Martha and Alexis about what had happened the previous night, so rather than encountering them, she took the long way down to the ground floor.

"What are you doing?" Lanie asked Beckett as she breezed past her on the pavement outside. "You're not supposed to leave the precinct."

"I can't stay there," Beckett answered, though she didn't stop walking. Lanie, obviously concerned for her friend, turned around and followed her.

"And why not?" Lanie asked.

"It's like the summer all over again," Beckett said. "Lanie, I can't think straight when he's not there. I can't focus on anything! It's like he keeps me grounded."

"Beckett, you lived a good thirty years of your life without him there. Why do you think now would be any different?"

"Twenty," she said, pausing. "It was only twenty years."

"What are you talking about, girl?"

Beckett sighed. "I'll tell you when we get to my apartment. Come on."

* * *

"Okay, fess up, girlfriend," Lanie said as soon as Beckett shut the door. "What on earth did you mean by twenty years?"

"You remember how I spent three years on the force trying to solve my mother's murder?"

"Girl, of course I remember that!" Lanie snapped as Beckett grabbed a drink out of the fridge. "No thanks," she added as Beckett offered her one, too.

"Well, while I was busy doing that, to no avail, I did not open one box of my mother's possessions. The only thing that I could look at of hers was her wedding ring, which, as you know, I wear every single day. Before she died, mum had recommended a book to me, saying that it was one of the best things she'd read in a long time. I said no – I wasn't a big fan of the genre. And then, she was killed. Dad boxed up the stuff of hers that he couldn't keep. And he gave them to me. I let them rot in a corner, having no particular interest in them at all. Her book collection was in there. And in every single one of them, she'd written her name."

"Is this going anywhere? Because I'm supposed to be looking at Ryan and Esposito's stiff."

"Sorry. Anyway, after a particularly bad day at work, I came home and I saw the boxes. I decided to go through them, just to see if I could find something – anything – that would help me solve her murder. That's when I found this."

Beckett walked over to the bookcase and pulled out a book that looked as though it had been extremely well-read. The jacket on the cover was frayed and dirty, and the pages were crumpled and curling up at the edges. Lanie, confused, took the book in her hands and opened the front cover. There was the name 'Johanna Beckett' written there, just like Kate had said there would be. Then she looked at the cover of the book.

"That was the book that made me get help. I knew that I needed to stop digging into my mother's case, otherwise I'd never be able to let go of it. It was her favourite book. And I looked up the author, found out he'd written more books, so I looked them up. Whenever I was having a particularly bad day, I would pick up one of his books and read it until I fell asleep. He was there for me whenever I was feeling upset, or angry. Whenever I felt like just giving up. He helped me through a lot, Lanie."

"Does he know about this?"

"No," Beckett said. "And he's not going to know – ever."

Lanie looked seriously at her friend. "Is there anything else that I need to know?"

Beckett nodded and led Lanie to the murder board she'd made of her mother, now updated with the new information they'd gotten the previous week. "I made this when Castle went to the Hamptons over the Summer. I looked at it every day, hoping for some new fact to come jumping out at me. You know that I was a wreck without him here. What if I never see him again, Lanie? Am I going to go down that road again? The Hamptons was just for three months, and look what it did to me. I'm scared, Lanie."

Not knowing what to say, Lanie looked from the murder board to Beckett, who was looking down at her shoes and trying not to cry. And then, finally, she looked at the book that she still held in her hands. A name on the front cover stared her in the face as she looked at his first published work – Richard Castle.

* * *

**Hey guys! Sorry for not updating in ages. Uni started, and you know I have that "I'm not posting another chapter until I finished one further down the track", and I only just finished one, so here's the next chapter. Juggling uni and work has been stressing me out for a while, and I got sick, and the doctor gave me yesterday, today and tomorrow off work and school. Though yesterday didn't really count as I'd already been to uni (and done a ten-minute test worth 15% of my unit mark) and I didn't have work to begin with.**

**Anyway, enough rambles from me. I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and I should have some more for you soon, seeing as how I'm home and I've got nothing else to do.  
I was also thinking about working on a fanvid. What do you think?**

**Love, gabiellexx **


	8. Chapter 8

**Just before we start the chapter, I'd like to point out that this is Fanfiction (obviously). I'm not Andrew W. Marlowe. I wish I was though, because that man is freaking amazing. But my point is, that I don't know exactly what each of the characters would do if they were put into a certain situation like Mr Marlowe would. Because of this, the characters may act just a little OOC at times, which yes, is my fault. But I'm not perfect, okay? I'm just a fan, and I'm writing because I enjoy it. 'Kay?**

**I would also appreciate it if people didn't try and convince me that a character in my fic may or may not be the murderer. It's my fic, okay? I know who the murderer is going to be, and it kind of makes you look stupid when you try and tell me that it's somebody else. You haven't even gotten all the information yet, and yes, I'll grant that it looks like it might be one person based on the information that I've already given you, but isn't that a good cop show does? Makes you think it's one person and then makes it another?**

**Enough ranting from me, that just ticked me off a little bit. I uploaded two Castle one-shots since the last time I updated this, so if you'd like to go check them out, they're called 'Cafe Coffe' and 'Going Out'. And I hope you enjoy this chapter, despite my above rant. **

**_Love, Ashley

* * *

_**

Castle had taken the handcuffs off Giselle's door at around six o'clock in the morning. He'd spent the entire night up, planning out what course of action he was going to take from here. Of all the nights Castle had spent staying up planning things, most commonly the plots of his novels, this one had made him the most tired. He'd run circles in his head, all coming back to the same conclusion – to make sure that Giselle didn't suspect anything about him putting handcuffs on her, he would have to suggest some dirty, dirty sex. And he wasn't sure he was ready to suggest something like that to her. Or anybody, for that matter.

He made breakfast for his unwelcome house guest, and then decided he needed a caffeine hit if he was going to stay up for the rest of the day. He reached for the coffee grinder on the machine, and paused, his fingertips a millimetre from the button. Coffee was his and Beckett's thing. And it was like it was during the Summer – if Beckett wasn't there, he wouldn't drink his coffee. He shook his head at himself – what had he come to if he couldn't drink coffee because it reminded him of somebody too much. Somebody he'd only seen yesterday, and was planning to see again soon.

"Good morning," Giselle said, the smile radiating out of her voice. Castle jumped back from the coffee machine without pressing the button. "Oh, you made me breakfast."

"Yes," Castle said, making a point of turning and facing her. "I feel as though we got off on the wrong foot, yesterday. Mind you, you did kidnap my partner and my friend, but still. I think maybe I should give you a chance."

"You won't regret it," Giselle smiled.

_I already do, _he thought to himself, remembering that Beckett and himself had had the exact same exchange during the first case they'd worked when he came back. Except there was one difference between that time and this one. He actually liked Beckett.

He shook himself lightly and grabbed a piece of toast.

* * *

There was a light knock at the door. Confused, and slightly alarmed, Beckett picked up her gun, motioned for Lanie to stay behind her, and edged closer to it. Whoever was behind it knocked again, slightly more impatient this time. Taking a deep breath, Beckett swung the door open and pointed her gun.

"Josh!" she asked, confused. "I thought you weren't coming back until next week."

"I wasn't," he said, eyeing the gun and squirming; it was still pointed at his chest.

"Oh, sorry," Beckett said, putting it down. "I got kidnapped yesterday... I'm a bit on edge."

"What?" Josh asked. "What do you mean, kidnapped?"

"Somebody abducted me on my way to work," she said. "Josh – before you ask anything, we need to talk."

"What about?" he said, sitting down on the couch. He noticed that a copy of _Heat Wave_ was on the table, and Lanie stood in the corner of the room, still clutching _In a Hail of Bullets. _He had a sinking feeling that this had something to do with the writer that had been shadowing his girlfriend for almost three years now. "Kate, what's going on?"

She glanced at Lanie, who edged quietly out of the room.

"What's that?" Josh asked, pointing to the murder board that Lanie had left open. Beckett supposed she couldn't completely blame Lanie for leaving it open; it was hers, and she should have closed it beforehand.

"That's uh, that's the case notes for my mother's murder, twelve years ago," she admitted. "How was Africa?"

"It was... an experience," he said. "Some of the things these kids go through... Hey, what did you want to talk to me about?"

He'd noticed her distraction. "Look, Josh, I've been giving it a lot of thought... Me and you... we hardly ever see each other. You're never around when I need someone around. Don't argue, please. Last week, the Detective that was investigating my mother's murder was shot dead, right in front of me. He was going to give me some new information. I assaulted a suspect and was kicked off a case. And I sat here and I cried, and you weren't there for me like you were supposed to be. And I know that you were away, but you go away a lot. And I don't think I can depend on you if you're never here."

"Are you – are you breaking up with me?"

Beckett nodded. "I think I am. I'm sorry, Josh. I really am. Because I really, really like you, but you're never here."

"Are you leaving me for writer-boy?"

"What?" she asked.

"Writer-boy," he said, picking up the copy of _Heat Wave_ on the table. "Castle. Are you leaving me to be with him?"

"No. Josh, no, it's not that," she said, subconsciously lying. "And even if it was, you wouldn't be around enough to care." She realised just how harsh that sounded as soon as she'd said it, and regretted it almost immediately. "Josh, I didn't mean that."

"Yes, you did," he said, putting the book down. He stood up and started walking towards the door. "Kate, you're an amazing, amazing person. And I really like you. But if you wanted writer-boy, why didn't you just say so?"

She opened her mouth to answer, but the words didn't come. She couldn't think of anything? Really? Josh shook his head and left the apartment, leaving an awkward, miserable air hanging between Beckett and the door.

"So," Lanie said, exiting Beckett's bedroom and walking towards her. _Of course she heard the whole thing! _Beckett growled in her head. _I love her and all, but sometimes... _ "How are we going to get writer-boy back?"

"We're not," Beckett said, walking to the kitchen. She made a beeline for the coffee machine, but paused with her finger an inch from the button. Coffee was her and Castle's thing. No Castle, no coffee, just like Esposito had said last night. Was she really that sad? That she couldn't have her caffeine hit without Castle there?

"What are you talking about?" Lanie asked, incredulous. "You just broke up with a very handsome doctor, who was obviously crazy about you, so that you could start a relationship with Castle, and you're not even going to try and do anything to get him back?"

"The last time I broke up with somebody to start a relationship with Castle, Castle went off to the Hamptons with his ex-wife and publisher." She was angry with herself, that much was clear. "Now, he's with the woman who kidnapped and bound me -" she gestured to her wrists which were still bandaged due to Castle's handiwork "- and ripped skin off my face -" she now gestured to the bandaids on her face, which were covering the injuries there. "It's obvious that he's always going to pick other women over me, Lanie. Why should I expect any different?"

"If you believed that, why did you just break up with Josh?"

* * *

"Gina," Castle said. "Hi, it's Rick."

"Rick, hi," she said curtly. They were still not on good terms following their most recent break-up. "You have a manuscript due. What excuse are you going to use this time?"

"I haven't finished it," he shrugged. "Listen, I'm not going to be able to make it to our meeting today."

"And why not?" Gina sounded angry.

"Oh, no reason, I just have a date with Detective Beckett," he said sarcastically. Then, as he remembered that he had sworn to himself that he wasn't going to be speaking with Detective Beckett, at least until he'd sorted out the situation with Giselle Chambers. He wasn't going to get her hurt, not again. Honestly, he didn't think he'd be able to stop talking to her altogether.

"Funny, Rick," Gina responded, laughing half-heartedly. "Real reason?"

"A situation has come up. I'm needed at home. I'll reschedule -"

"When you have a completed manuscript for me," Gina said angrily, then hung up the phone.

"Who was on the phone?" Giselle asked, yawning. "Wasn't Detective Beckett, was it?"

"I told you, I'm not going to speak to her anymore," Castle said, thinking that Giselle yawning was odd. She'd had a full night's sleep last night – he'd been the one up all night. "No, that was Gina."

"Your ex-wife?"

"Publisher, in this capacity," Castle shrugged. "She's a bit shirty with me... Maybe because I broke it off with her..."

"That was weeks ago," Giselle said, and Castle was startled for a moment before he remembered that Chambers had been stalking them.

"Yeah, she's still bitter about it. She says that I don't trust her with Alexis."

"Do you?"

"That's not the point," he said. "Anyway, I called Gina to cancel a meeting I had with her today. I haven't finished my latest manuscript, and so I can't discuss it with her."

"Fair enough," Giselle smiled sweetly – a little too sweetly in Castle's opinion. "So, what do you want to do instead?"

"I was thinking we might stay in... Order some take-out, watch some fluffy movies. Alexis and Martha won't be home, so we'll have the house all to ourselves."

He tried as hard as he could to imply that he wanted to do extremely naughty things with her, no matter how much he didn't want to. Apparently though, Castle's horrendous attempt at innuendo was enough, because Giselle raised her eyebrows and smiled seductively. "Whatever you want, Richard," she grinned, picking up the phone. "Chinese?"

"NO!" he said, a little too hurriedly. It was just like the coffee – Chinese food was his and Beckett's thing. He wasn't going to have it with anybody else. He searched for a story. "I mean, I had Chinese a couple of days ago.. It's a little too soon for my stomach. What about Indian food?"

"That sounds great!" Giselle said. "How about I order and you go set up the movies?"

Castle narrowed his eyes at her – she was a little too eager to spend fifteen minutes on the phone to Eeshwah Pandi from the Indian restaurant for his liking. Gently, he took the phone from her and put it down on the receiver. "I'll order," he said. "And I'll set up the movies. How about you go back to your place and get some clothes and stuff? You are going to be staying here for a while, after all."

"You don't want me alone in your study," she said. It was a statement, one that was correct.

"It's a territorial thing. Nobody is allowed in my study without me in here," he said. This wasn't the real reason, however. He would be quite content with having his mother, his daughter, or Detective Beckett in here without him, because he trusted that none of them would go through his computer while waiting for Pandi from Pandi's Indian Cuisine to take his order. And this was not an honour that he would not readily bestow upon Giselle Chambers.

"Okay, fine," Giselle smiled, though she looked upset. "I'll see you in around half an hour with my things."

"Later," he said, watching her leave the room before picking up the phone and dialling the number for Pandi's restaurant.

* * *

Beckett's phone rang and she stared at it for a few seconds before deciding to answer.

"We need you down at the station," Esposito said.

"Why?" she sighed. She wasn't in the mood to go back to the station.

"Well, because we're assuming that our medical examiner won't go to a building where you're not, and we need her to look at our body. That, and we've got no leads."

"How did your suspect get killed?" She decided to try and help them from here as much as she could. A trip to the station would not be helpful for her right now. Or maybe she should go anyway. She may as well get used to Castle not being there again, right?

"Gunshot wound to the chest," he said. "Look, we just need you to come down. Please?"

"Fine," she said. "I'll be there in five."

"Excellent. Tell Lanie I say hi."

Beckett glanced at Lanie then hung the phone up. "Esposito says hi."

Five minutes later, Beckett and Lanie parted ways in the lobby of the twelfth precinct, Lanie travelling down to the morgue and Beckett making her way up to homicide.

"Good to see you again," Ryan said as she breezed past his desk. "You know, we thought you'd be staying here this morning."

"Had to get out," she said, not meeting either of their eyes as she looked through the new folder on her desk. "These are all the photos from the crime scene?"

"Yeah," Esposito said, a slightly nervous tone in his voice that was not lost on the female detective.

"What?"

"That's yesterdays crime scene, actually," Ryan said. "We thought you'd want to look at that one before you look at the next one." He placed the file on her desk.

"They're linked? How?"

"We'll see if you can figure it out," he replied. Furrowing her brow and looking at the two of them, she opened the other case file and looked at both at once.

"There's nothing odd about the scenes," she said, closing the files and handing them back to her teammates.

Ryan and Esposito looked at each other, worriedly. "This thing with Castle hit you pretty hard, didn't it? You didn't see anything odd, anything at all, about either of those crime scenes?"

"Well, maybe if I'd seen them in person, it might not be so difficult. All I can see are photos, and photos don't substitute having been there."

"Detective Beckett?" somebody asked, appearing at the end of the desk. She recognised the voice immediately as that of Alexis Castle. "Can I speak to you?"

Beckett looked up, dreading the coming conversation. She'd successfully managed to completely avoid Martha and Alexis since she'd arrived back from the precinct, but she knew that she'd have to give it up sometime.

"Yeah, of course," Beckett said, leading her towards the break room. "What's up?"

"What's going on with dad?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I spoke to him on the phone last night, and he said that I had to stay exactly where I was. And he said he didn't want to talk to you. And we was being annoyingly cryptic. And I thought you might know what was going on."

"Alexis," Beckett said, offering her a chair. "I don't know what's going on, not exactly. But yesterday, I was kidnapped by one of his exes. Giselle Chambers, does that name ring a bell?"

"She was creepy," Alexis shuddered. "Wait, she kidnapped you? Why would she do that?"

"Well, we suspect that maybe it was to get to your father."

"Where's dad?"

"I don't know where he went," Beckett said.

"He's with Chambers, though, isn't he?" Alexis asked.

Beckett closed her eyes so that they wouldn't betray her feelings, and nodded.

"Why? Why would he do that to you?"

"Woah, woah, what do you mean 'to me'?"

Alexis realised what she'd said. "Nothing," she said, as her phone rang and she pulled it out of her pocket. Before she answered it, she looked at the caller ID. Confused, she turned to show it to Beckett.

_Dad_.

"Hello," she said, turning away. "Oh, hi Dad, what do you want?"

"Is everything okay there?" he asked, worried. "Nobody's hurt, everybody's okay?"

"Dad, what on earth is going on?"

"I can't tell you," he said. "I just need to know that everybody's okay."

"Yeah, they are. In fact, Gram wants to talk to you."

"Okay, put her on," Castle said. Alexis, slightly peeved off with her dad, handed the phone to Beckett without saying goodbye.

"Beckett," he said, straight away, giving no explanation as to how he knew. Apparently he was, in fact, turning into a pretty savvy detective. "I'm sorry, but I can't let her hurt you."

"She still is, Castle" Beckett said, sounding more disappointed and upset than angry. Alexis had left the room as soon as she'd passed over the phone, so she didn't have to worry about anybody overhearing.

Castle closed his eyes, an action that Beckett sensed over the phone, and sighed.

"I have to go," he said. "I just wanted to know that you were OK. I- I love you."

As she opened her mouth to reply, the phone clicked, and a long, steady 'beep' sounded through the phone. She answered anyway.

"I love you, too, Castle."


	9. Chapter 9

When she was sure that she'd cried herself out, Beckett left the bathroom where she'd been hiding for the past hour, and went back to her desk. She supposed that she'd better look at the crime scene photos that Esposito and Ryan had left for her while they went and got something for lunch.

This time she noticed it straight away – no blood splatter at either of the crime scenes. And both of the bodies had been lying down peacefully, almost as though they were sleeping when they'd been shot. Confused, she went through the autopsy notes that Lanie had presumably finished while she'd been... indisposed.

"So they _are_ linked," she muttered to herself, fumbling around for her phone. She'd been just about to ring Castle when she remembered – they weren't working together anymore. She put the phone back down on her desk, controlling her emotions rather well, in her opinion, when Esposito and Ryan arrived back at their desks.

"Looking over the case files?" Ryan asked.

"Yeah," she said. "How come they were both unconscious when they were shot?"

"Should be in the autopsy notes," Esposito said. "They were both knocked out with Chloroform."

"Shut the front door!" she exclaimed, staring at them. "You've got to be – ugh, I'm going to kill him!"

"Woah, calm down, Beckett," said Esposito. "You talking about Castle?"

"No, I'm talking about the only other male that I talk to on a regular basis," she said sarcastically.

"Josh?" Ryan asked, reasonably confused.

_Shit_, Beckett thought.

"She broke up with Josh this morning," Lanie said, happily strolling up to her best friend's desk. "I see you're out of the bathroom now," she added with a nod towards Beckett. "Feeling better?"

"No where near," she said, looking at the case files. "Why didn't you tell me right away when you found out that they were knocked out with Chloroform?"

"Well, I tried to call you, sweetie, but you weren't answering either of your phones, and I know better than to disturb a girl when she's crying her eyes out. Especially if it's you."

"You – you broke up with Josh?" Esposito asked, and he had a feeling that her crying her eyes out had absolutely nothing to do with breaking up with her boyfriend.

Ryan looked more excited than a dog with a bone at Christmas. "Does this mean you and Castle are finally going to get together?"

Lanie and Esposito glared at him.

"Did I just – did I just say that out loud?" he faltered.

They nodded.

"Can we get back to this case, please?" Beckett asked.

"We know who did it, why don't we just go and arrest her?" Esposito suggested.

"We don't know who did it," Beckett told him.

"Giselle Chambers," Ryan said. "Of course she did it."

"Did you find any prints at any of the crime scenes? Did you have any witnesses that can place Chambers at the crime scene? I actually don't think she did it."

"What makes you think that?" Ryan asked, angrily. "She kidnapped the two of us."

"Think about it, Ryan: she kills two people in exactly the same way but leaves no prints or clues to her identity. We don't have a scrap of DNA evidence linking her to the two murders. But, she brutally kidnaps two NYPD detectives, leaves evidence all over the place, and reveals to us who she is? That doesn't sound like a murderer."

"I still find it hard to believe that we couldn't find any evidence on the bodies or at the scenes."

"I'm fuming the new body for prints now," Lanie butted in. "I'll call you if I get anything."

"Thanks, Lanie," Beckett said, with an attempt at a smile.

Lanie lazily saluted her and left to go back down to the morgue. Beckett looked down at the case files to see if she could find anything more when she felt Esposito and Ryan staring at her.

"What?" she asked, looking up at them.

"Just thinking," Esposito said thoughtfully. "Now that you and Castle are pretty much going to be an item, you're going to need a nickname."

"We are _not_ an item," she stressed, adding _yet_ in her head. "And what do you mean, nickname?"

"You know, like celebrity couples have. Like... Bradgelina or TomKat. You know, those cutesy nicknames so that you don't have to say the entire two names of the people you're talking about."

"Well, you're not going to have to worry about that any time soon," she said, looking back down at the file, "because Castle and I are not dating. Neither are we celebrities."

"But Castle is," Ryan pointed out. "I'm thinking Kick," he added.

"I'll kick you in a minute," Beckett muttered, though nobody heard.

"That sounds like some ridiculous energy drink that the kids are drinking nowadays," Esposito disagreed. "No, no, what about... Rate?"

"So people could 'Rate' us from one to ten?" Beckett asked, laughing mockingly. "See what I did there?"

"Kate-sel."

"Katchard."

"Rickerine."

"Katick."

"I have a suggesion," Beckett interrupted before they could think of anything more ridiculous. "How about Caskett? Because that's where the two of you are going to end up if you say _one more_ _word_ about this."

"You know, that kind of works," Esposito nodded, impressed. "Caskett. We'll stick with that."

"I now see why he made you two 'Roach'," Beckett sighed, rolling her eyes. "Don't you have some work to do, or, something?"

"We can't do anything until we get the results back from Lanie."

"We should go question Chambers," Ryan said, still convinced she'd done it.

"We don't know where she is," Beckett said, pushing her hair back from her face. "And even if we did, we can't question her. We're too close to the investigation, you know, being her victims."

"I can, though," Esposito said. "All we need to do is find her."

"Well, wherever she is, she's with Castle," Beckett said. "And we don't know where he is."

"Call his house," Ryan said. "See if he's there."

Beckett stared at him and then shook her head. "I don't want to know where he is," she said, standing up and heading towards the elevator. "I think that you two can do this case by yourselves. I don't want anything to do with it. Not at the moment."

"Beckett!" Ryan called out, starting after her. Esposito held him back, shaking his head too.

"Leave it, Ryan," he said. "She needs her space, okay? She's been through a lot in the past few days. Let's just focus on catching our killer."

"But -"

"Ryan, I'll hit you if you try and get her involved, okay?"

"Understood."

* * *

Beckett turned the lock to her bedroom door so that nobody could get in. Of course, she wasn't expecting anybody to get in, but she'd been kidnapped yesterday, so she was still slightly on edge. Confident that the door was not going to open from the other side, she slid down it and sat on the floor, her hands pushing her hair back off her face so that she felt slighlty less trapped.

He'd said that he loved her, she remembered. Only in her wildest dreams had he ever said that to her; she had never thought that the words would escape his lips in real life. But things had definitely been different between them lately, after he'd come back from the Hamptons. The flirtatious teasing between them had settled down, only popping up occasionally, usually caused by herself. She'd been subconsciously trying to get him to want her, she now realised, and was thankful she was alone when her cheeks blushed a dark red.

But yesterday, he said he'd only gone to the Hamptons with his ex-wife to make her jealous. At the time, she thought that he wasn't into her. And, she now realised, he must have thought that she wasn't into him.

"Why didn't I just say it?" she whispered to herself. They could have been together all that time. He wouldn't have gone away and left her spiralling back down the road of her mother's case. Because that's where she went when he wasn't there – to twelve years before. Sighing, she stood up and unlocked her door again, walking over to the murder board she'd made. As she opened the shutters, her phone vibrated.

Normally she would have ignored it, but something told her to look at it. It had only gone off once, so she knew that it was a text message. Which meant that it was _not_ anybody from the precinct about a case. It was probably Lanie, seeing if she was okay.

However, the name that bore into her eyes from the glarish light on the phone was not Lanie Parrish. It was Richard Castle.

_Don't even think about it_.

He knew her too well, she thought and she beamed at the thought.

* * *

"Who were you texting?" Giselle asked as she walked back into the apartment with some quite full suitcases.

"Oh, just Alexis," Castle lied easily, pocketing his phone. "Come on, lunch has just been delivered. I've got _The Lion King _ready to go."

"Disney movies, really?" Giselle asked. "Actually, you really meant we were going to watch movies?"

"What else would I mean?" he asked uncertainly.

"I don't know," she said seductively. "I thought we could participate in some more... adult activities."

Castle rolled his eyes. "It's barely even lunch time," he said. "Too early for... adult activities."

"So, we're really going to watch movies then?" she asked, unbottoning her coat. Castle's mouth dropped open a little bit in surprise – underneath her coat, Chambers wore what Castle could only describe as indescribably sexy lingere. And for a fleeting second, he was tempted by it, but quickly shut his mouth and looked away.

"That was the plan," he choked out. "But, I guess, plans could be changed."

Chambers beamed at him and gently dragged him towards the bedroom. It was against his better judgement to do this, but he let himself be led along.

"Is there anything you'd like me to do?" she asked, pulling him closer to her as they neared the bed. "I'll do anything."

"Actually," Castle said , his own voice low and seductive, "there is. Since I've been working with the NYPD, I've loved to interrogate people." He was appalled with himself and what was coming out of his mouth. He was planning quickly, giving no thought to what would happen after he had her locked up."I like them to be wearing handcuffs."

Giselle raised her eyebrows and smiled at him. "I'm all up for wearing handcuffs," she said. "Do you have any?"

He reached behind her and pulled Beckett's handcuffs out of the drawer beside his bed where he'd placed them this morning. "Special issue," he smiled slyly.

She giggled ecstatically as Castle placed one of the cuffs around her right wrist then, the chain through the bedframe, and placed the other cuff around her left wrist. Then, as she continued to giggle, he stood up and backed away, a menacing glint in his eye. "That was a lot easier than I thought it would be," he shrugged, actually proud of himself. "But then, you were never really a smart one, were you, Giselle Chambers?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked, affronted, pure rage in her voice as she pulled on the handcuffs as if they'd magically loosen themselves and let her free. "What are you doing?"

"Oh, come on, you honestly thought I'd leave them forever? Marry you? This was all a part of a plan to get you in jail so that you can't kidnap anybody else."

"Rick!" she snapped. "Let me out of here!"

"Not likely," he said, as he closed the bedroom door behind her.

* * *

"Esposito," Esposito answered, looking around the precinct.

"Yes, I'd like to give you some information about a criminal you're looking for," the smug voice of Richard Castle replied.

"Castle?" he asked. "What – Beckett's not here."

"Oh, isn't she?" he asked, with genuine concern. "That's not why I called. I've got Chambers, and I know that Montgomery doesn't want her or Ryan on the case. Ergo, I called you to tell you that I've got her."

"We know you're with her," Esposito sighed. "Beckett told us."

"I have her handcuffed to the bed!" he said in exasperation.

"Look, I don't want to know about your demented sexual escapades, Castle," he said, seemingly disgusted as he scoffed. "Honestly, what is it with celebrities and their fetishes?"

"Esposito -"

"And just remember that Beckett is like my little sister, okay?"

"What has that got to do with anything?" Castle asked, completely thrown off.

"What's what supposed to mean?"

"Well, you just went from not listening to me telling you that I have a criminal that you're after in my apartment so that you can come and charge her with the kidnapping of Beckett and Ryan to telling me that if I do anything to Beckett you'll kill me."

"I didn't say that," Esposito said, shaking his head slightly.

"That's what you implied," Castle said.

"Didn't mean anything," the Detective said. "I'll be there soon with some uniforms. You know we'll have to get a statement from you? Interrogate you?"

"I'm well aware of how things like this work," Castle sighed. "Just get over here so I can leave."

* * *

**Hey guys :)  
So, reading over this, not my best piece of prose. I promise the next chapter will be better, alright?  
And, just to further my writing skill, I've signed up to do reviews of books, games and music for the student magazine at my university. The editors of the sections said that they'd email me about it soon, and I'm really looking forward to it. **

**In other news, I used a piece of equipment at work wrong, and kind of badly hurt my foot. I can barely put any weight on it, and it hurts like hell. **

**I also finished a tonne of chapters over the past week, but I couldn't update anything because my brother used up our bandwith and the internet was going to slow to function at all, so I didn't have internet. So you shouldn't have to wait too long between chapters because I'm fairly sure I'm almost done. **

**Anyway, I hope you enjoy your day/morning/night/evening/afternoon/any other possible time of day that I may have forgotten because it's almost midnight while I'm writing this.**

**Love, Ashley xx **


	10. Chapter 10

**I'm not pretending to be the writers of Castle. If they act a little OOC at times, it's completely my fault. Please don't yell at me for it.**

"Now that that's over," Ryan said, "let's start trying to solve the murder cases. Castle, get updated on this morning's vic. Female, caucasian, twenty-three. Studying anthropology at NYU. She was found in exactly the same way as our other vic, from yesterday. No blood splatter at the scene, hands folded peacefully on her stomach. We suspect Chambers was involved."

"No," Castle said, looking from one to the other. "She wasn't."

"What makes you say that?" Esposito asked interestedly. Normally, with things like this, Beckett and her somewhat unorthodox partner were generally on the same page. However, what was different in this case is that neither of them had spoken to each other about it.

"She doesn't peg me as the murderer type," Castle shrugged. "Yes, I know, she threatened to murder the three of you, but that doesn't mean she was actually going to do it. And think about it – she reveals herself to two NYPD detectives that she's kidnapped, leave all sorts of incriminating evidence at the crime scenes of the kidnapping, but leave absolutely nothing at either of our murder scenes? It doesn't make sense."

Ryan cursed under his breath and reached into his pocket.

"I told you he'd say the same thing as Beckett," Esposito grinned, pocketing the fifty. "How many times have I won these bets against you, Ryan?"

"Too many," Ryan said, shaking his head.

"Speaking of Beckett, where is she?"

And now Ryan and Esposito glanced awkwardly at each other. "She stormed out about fifteen minutes before you called," Esposito answered. "She said she didn't want anything to do with it. I don't know where she's gone."

Castle raised his eyebrow at the two of them. "Okay, Ryan, I know about... How did you find out, Esposito?"

"Find out about what?" he asked, bemused.

"You _know_ what," said the writer. "Don't think the little sister comment was lost on me."

"Ryan let it slip in the morgue last night," Esposito shrugged. "So... how was it?"

"It was a ruse," Castle told them, narrowing his eyes. "She was going to shoot the guy. If she did, the two of you would be dead right now. So really, I did you a favour. And maybe you should stop questioning my motives."

"We're detectives," Ryan said. "It's what we do."

"She was really going to shoot the guy?"

"Her hand was on her gun," Castle offered.

"Okay, so it was a ruse," Esposito conceded. "Did she kiss back?"

Castle made the face he normally made when he was trying to hide the truth and mock them at the same time as he replied with, "No."

"Was it the best kiss you've ever had?" Ryan asked, tipping his head forward.

Castle hesitated a moment; that had been a hard question. Two kisses would contend for that position. One, of course, being the one they were discussing now. The other was the one that Ryan and Esposito didn't know about, the one that he and Beckett had shared yesterday (had it really only been a day before?) in her apartment. And he honestly thought about them both.

"No, it wasn't," he said. And then, just to keep his two best friends from guessing, he added, "that honour belongs to my teddy bear."

Before they could protest, he headed for the elevator, his plan being to leave the precinct and relax for a while at home. Martha and Alexis had been allowed to leave the station as soon as Castle had arrived back and Alexis, still slightly angry at Castle, hadn't even hugged him to say that she was glad that he was safe. Martha had left with her granddaughter while Castle stayed behind to give his statement.

However, as he walked the roads of New York City, he realised that his feet were taking him in the complete opposite direction to his apartment. As he took in his surroundings and turned another bend, he realised that, for what felt like the hundredth time in two days, he was going to be paying a visit to Beckett's apartment.

"What are you doing here?" she snapped at him as she opened the door. Just like she'd answered the door when Josh called in, she was aiming a gun at him. "Sorry," she said, putting the gun down. "Come in."

"Thank you," he said, following awkwardly behind her. Then, following in the theme of awkwardness, the two of them faced each other, Castle leaning against the bench so that it cut annoyingly across his back, while Beckett supported herself against the couch.

"Isn't Giselle going to be looking for you?" she asked, mockingly, as she stared at him, eyes narrowed.

"I know you're mad at me," he said, holding his arms in front of him, showing that he wasn't going to argue. "I understand that completely. I did something stupid, I acted like an idiot, and I didn't stay where I should have. But I want you to know that I had your back, okay? And it was easier than I thought."

"What are you talking about?"

"Chambers has been arrested; charged with kidnapping two police detectives, and obstruction of justice. I was trying to think about how to go about getting her in your handcuffs long enough so that I could call Esposito to come and make the arrest."

"Do I want to know how you did that?"

"I don't even want to know how I did that," Castle grimaced, remembering what he'd pretended to want to be doing. "And, speaking of which," he delved a hand into his deep jacket pocket and pulled out two shining rings of metal. "Your handcuffs."

She looked down at his hands, took the cuffs and then looked back up at him.

"You can go now," she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Kate -"

"Castle," she said warningly. "I would like you to leave."

"Okay, but first, I just want to know where we stand."

She dropped her guard. "What do you mean?"

"The two of us – what are we doing? We just seem to be running in circles. We finally get a little bit closer to each other, and then _something_ happens, and we start back at our non-trusting phase. That's how we started working together. Then again after I looked into your mother's murder – which, I'll admit, was deserved – and then again after I got back from the Hamptons. And I have this feeling that if we don't talk about it, we're just going to keep doing that. And we both know that neither of us want that."

"How can I trust you when you keep doing things I tell you not to?" she asked.

"What? That happened once," he repiled.

"I told you not to do anything stupid."

"I always do stupid things, you know that."

"I meant stupid in terms of us," she clarified.

Now he knew exactly what she meant, and he was determined to set the record straight. "If I had said no; if I had stayed with you _last night_," he added, feeling the need to stress that it had barely been a day before, "then we would never have got her. She might not be the brightest star in the sky, an honour which deservingly belongs to you, but she can be damn elusive when she doesn't want to be found."

"That's not what I meant," she said, her voice rising slightly. "I meant going off with another woman, _again_. "

"Why are you so stubborn?" he asked, aggravated and throwing up his arms. "And so confusing? Just when I think I figure out what you want, you change your mind. And it's driving me insane! What is it?"

Kate looked at him, shaking her head slightly. "I'm scared," she whispered her voice barely audible to him as he replayed what he'd just yelled in his head.

"What?" he asked, snapping his head down to look at her.

"I'm scared," she repeated, louder now. She bit her bottom lip as she contemplated what she was going to say next, and whether or not she should say it at all. "I'm actually terrified at the thought of being with you. You've had two failed marriages, countless failed relationships, and you're a household name. People would talk about us, about _me_, and I'm scared that maybe, one day, you'll realise that I'm not what you want and you'll leave. I don't want that to happen, Rick. That's why I might come across as confusing or stubborn. I think I know what you want, and every time you do something stupid and we start bickering, I start doubting myself, I start doubting what I think I know. It's absolutely terrifying that you have enough of me to break my heart if we don't work out."

He stared at her, his mouth gaping open. "I feel -"

He was cut off by her phone ringing. She kept her eyes on him for a moment, and then answered it, nodding and making non-commital noises every few seconds. "Okay, I'll be right there," she finished, then hung up. "Come on, Castle, we have a lead."

She sounded disappointed, he realised. Perhaps in him, perhaps in herself, but that didn't stop her from walking towards the door.

"I meant what I said on the phone," he said, her hand on the handle. "And I feel the same about us... except, you know, you haven't been in two failed marria-"

She silenced him by putting a finger to his lips, a simple gesture that two years ago would have done nothing to him but silence him. Now, it sent tingles through his body, her warmth affecting him more than he would have liked. It caused his eyes to flick down at her outstretched arm, and his eyes followed it until they met hers. Quickly, she pulled the finger away, and walked out.

"You coming?" she called out, and he smiled, bounding after her.

* * *

"Mr Demper?" Beckett asked as she entered the interview room, Castle following only a few steps behind her. "Do you know why you're here?"

"Somethin' about a shootin'?" he asked, looking around. "Look, I told the guys, I heard a shot this morning as I was walkin' home from a friend's house. Why am I here?"

"How far away do you think the shot was?" Beckett asked, ignoring his question.

"I dunno, maybe a block? I ran away from there as fast as I could. You don't wanna be walkin' around New York with a crazy gunman loose."

"I'm aware of that," Beckett told him, narrowing her eyes. "I'm a cop."

"Yeah, I see that," he commented, glancing at her. "It's hot."

"Hey!" Castle snapped, warningly.

"Castle," Beckett hissed, glancing at him.

"Sorry," he mouthed, and he gestured for her to continue her interview.

Now Beckett pulled out Chambers' mugshot. "Does this woman look familiar to you?" she asked Demper. "Have you ever seen her before?"

Demper pulled the picture towards him and squinted at it. "Nup," he said, shrugging. "Why?"

"She's a suspect in our investigation," Beckett answered unenuthusiastically, taking the photo back. "You're free to go, Mr Demper."

As he left, the two turned to each other.

"That was a bust," he said.

"Obviously," she said, rolling her eyes and biting down on her bottom lip at the same time. His heart started beating a little bit faster whenever she did that. "Do we know how they're connected yet?" she asked as Esposito and Ryan joined them.

The two other detectives glanced at each other. "Well, we were thinking you might be able to help with that. We can't find anything. But we thought that maybe some fresh eyes to the investigation might help."

Beckett raised her eyebrows. "We've both looked at the case files."

"Caskett hasn't," Ryan smirked.

She narrowed her eyes at him and Esposito as she made her way out to the murder board. After she passed, Ryan sighed a sigh of relief, thinking he was out of danger. Swiftly, Beckett turned around and flicked the back of his ear, making him cry out in surprise and pain. Smirking herself, she turned back around and sat down at her desk, where she surveyed the boards.

"Victim One was a caucasian male, twenty-three, a construction worker, and lived in the city. How did you find him?"

"Like that," Castle answered, pointing to the photo of the crime scene.

"Did you talk to Lanie about what happened?"

"You told me not to do anything until you got there," he pointed out.

She looked surprised. "You listened? That has to be a first."

"I know, right?"

"Okay, so, what connection could 'Max Harding' possibly have with 'Eloise Reed'?" Beckett asked.

"They were both twenty-three," Castle said.

Beckett sighed. "That doesn't mean anything in New York. You might as well say they were both human."

"Hear me out, okay?" he said. "Both of them were twenty-three. Maybe they were connected in some way when they were children. Maybe they used to be neighbours. Maybe, just maybe, when they were in high school, one of them cheated on their partner, and so that partner has now killed them out of long-pent up rage."

"Your theories are becoming more and more ridiculous," she said. "Rage killings don't show up like this, Castle, you know that."

"She might have been planning it for years," Castle shrugged. "Maybe they ordered a professional hit."

She frowned slightly. "Okay. Roach, can you track down Harding's next of kin? We'll take Reed's."

"Roach?" Castle asked, confused. "That's -"

"I know, your nickname for them in your books. It's easier to say. Plus, it's really fitting right now."

"But _why_?"

She waited until Ryan and Esposito were out of earshot. And then she told him, albeit grudgingly. "They gave us a couple nickname."

* * *

**Hi Everybody :3 (I've changed my pen name. Bit confusing.)**

**Wow, so it's been over a month since I last updated... I assure you I have a very good explanation, but I'm guessing you don't want to hear excuses, so I'll just say that I'm sorry, and I hope it never happens again. In other news - it's only about 48 hours until the Season Finale and I'm shaking in my boots! (Metaphorical boots - I don't own actual boots yet, but I'm working on it.)  
I like this chapter a LOT better than the last one. For me, it's so much easier to write Caskett rather than solely Beckett or solely Castle.  
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it too, and feel free to put any comments, questions or queries into the review box. I love getting emails, so... :D**


	11. Chapter 11

**Hey guys, how about that finale? Whew! (May or may not be thinking about writing a post-finale fic...)  
Anyway, while I'm deciding about that, enjoy the next chapter of this! I hope you enjoyed the last one :D  
And remember; reviews are appreciated and replied to (mostly, when is working properly), but they're not necessary.**

**- Ashley xx**

* * *

"Cas...kett..." Castle muttered to himself in the car on the way to talk to Eloise Reed's next of kin. "How did they come up with that? They don't have the mental capacity for that."

Beckett glanced at him awkwardly then focused her eyes back on the road. "Actually, uh... I came up with that. As a joke, but I guess they were serious about it."

"Why were they even thinking up couple names for us?"

"I uh... I broke up with Josh," she said shortly.

"When?"

"This morning," she shrugged. "He was just never around when I needed him, you know. When you're in a relationship with someone, you want them to be there for you, right? And while everything was happening yesterday, he was nowhere. It was the right thing to do."

With the new revelation, Castle and Beckett were determinedly silent for the rest of the trip, only glancing at each other every few minutes.

* * *

Beckett knocked on the door three times, holding her badge in her hand so that she was ready to show it.

A woman that looked remarkably similar to Eloise opened up, and looked quizzically at them. "Can I help you?" she asked.

"Ania Reed?" Beckett asked.

"Yes," she replied, her eyes narrowing even further. "Who died?"

"Uh – who – what makes you say that?"

"You're a cop," Ania said, her eyes darting down to the badge that Beckett hadn't shown yet. "You know my name. They don't send people down for things like parking fines. Who died?"

Beckett swallowed. "Your sister, Eloise."

Ania rolled her eyes and walked back into the house. "Would you like anything to drink?" she asked them.

"Ms Reed, you're being incredibly blasé considering that your sister was found murdered this morning," Beckett said, confused.

"Hey, it happens," she said, the faintest hint of tears showing in her eyes. "I just didn't think it'd be Eloise."

"Why does your name sound familiar to me?" Castle asked suddenly. "Like I've heard it before..."

"Who are you?" Ania asked.

"Sorry," Beckett said, holding out her hand. "I'm Detective Kate Beckett, this is Richard Castle. He's working with the NYPD."

"You're the writer," she said, nodding. "Great work on _Naked Heat_, by the way."

"Thank you," he said, while Beckett blushed.

"Sorry, Ms Reed, but we're going to need to ask you a few questions."

"I'll start," Castle said, shooting Beckett a playful smile while she countered with a murderous glare. "Who died?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Before. Who died before Eloise? Somebody had to, otherwise you wouldn't be so..." He waved his hands around trying to think of the right word. "Calm," he finally finished.

Ania smiled, wiping a few streaks of tears off of her face. "All my friends," she said, picking up a photo from the mantelpiece. "That's them."

"All of them?" Beckett asked. "How?"

"The Hamptons fire," Castle said. "Right? I mean, they were killed in that?"

"What fire?"

"My friends and I had just graduated high school, and we decided to go away to celebrate it. Lacey's mum had a place in the Hamptons, and we were staying there for a week. On the third day into our stay, I had an appointment that I couldn't miss, so I travelled into the city. By the time I got back to the Hamptons, the fire had been put out, and all my friends were dead. I was a mess, for ages. Imagine losing everybody in the world that was important to you at once, Detective, and that's what happened to me."

"Wow," Beckett sighed, darting her eyes towards Castle. She might have been imagining it, but she thought she saw him do the exact same thing. "I'm sorry, Ania. Do they know what caused it?"

"Arson," Castle said. "They never caught the guy."

"How do you even know about this?"

"My place in the Hamptons... Just down the street from the house that caught fire. We were evacuated."

The doorbell rang, and Ania excused herself. When she came back, a young girl, perhaps five years old, was following behind her, holding her leg tight. "Sorry, Detective Beckett, Mr Castle... This is my daughter, Kate."

"Who are you?" the young girl asked of Detective Beckett.

Kate smiled and squatted down, holding out her hand. "My name's Kate too," she said. "It's very nice to meet you."

The younger Kate furrowed her brow and hid behind her mother.

"She's not good with new people," Ania explained, pulling her daughter onto her lap. "Kate, these two people need to talk to us about something very important, okay? You remember what I told you happened to daddy?"

Kate nodded, frowning slightly. "He's gone to sleep forever!" she said.

"That's right!" Ania said, nodding. "Well, Aunty Eloise has gone to sleep forever as well."

"Oh," the girl said, slightly sad, but mostly impatient. "Can I go play with Barbies now?"

"Of course," Ania smiled. "Go play with Barbies."

Beckett smiled as the little girl ran off to her bedroom.

"It'll sink in later," Ania commented sadly. "You needed to ask me some questions about Eloise?"

"Yes," Beckett said, nodding, and taking her seat again. "Ms Reed, how was your relationship with Eloise?"

"Do either of you have a sister?"

"No," they said in unison.

"Oh, right... well, I loved Eloise to bits, I really did. But, like all sisters do, we fought. About the smallest things, mostly. Comments on Facebook that were misinterpreted, how something went down ten years ago. But we were on good terms, and she babysat Kate whenever I had class."

"Class?" Beckett asked.

"I take a business class at community college. Being a single mother at age nineteen meant that I didn't really have a chance of going to college to do something like law or medicine. So I contented myself with the fact that I was going to have to do something like manage a business or something. My class didn't conflict with Elle's lectures, so she babysat her. It gave them a chance to hang out and be friends, and it gave me time to get away from motherhood."

"Can you think of anybody that could possibly want to harm Eloise?" Castle asked gently.

"Nobody I can think of," Ania shrugged.

"What about maybe somebody from her past? The way she was killed indicated pent up aggression, definitely pre-meditated murder."

"I'm really sorry, Detective, but I can't think of anybody."

"Does this woman look familiar to you?" Beckett asked, showing Ania a picture of Giselle Chambers.

Ania shook her head, tears starting to brim over the surface.

"That's fine," Beckett said, reaching into her pocket. "One last thing, and then we'll leave you alone. Do you recognise this man?"

Ania took a look at the picture and her jaw dropped.

"That's a yes," Castle whispered, to which Beckett replied with a scathing look.

"This is Max Harding," Ania said, looking between them. "Is this some kind of a joke?"

"There's no joke, Ms Reed. Why?"

"Max is Lacey's little brother, and he was staying with us when the house caught fire... I thought he was dead, but he looks older in this photo."

"He was found dead yesterday morning, the same way your sister was. We believe the two murders are linked. Can you think of any connection between the two of them?"

Ania nodded slowly. "They were dating when the fire hit. He must have run away somewhere... Who would do something like this?"

"That's what we're trying to figure out," Beckett said. "If you have any more information, please, don't hesitate to call us."

"Okay," Ania sniffed. "Thank you."

* * *

"I can't imagine going through what she went through," Castle said on the way back to the precinct. "I don't know what I'd do with myself if I lost everybody important to me."

"It's easy, Castle," Beckett said, and he could tell that she meant that it was a simple answer, but not that it was an easy thing to do. "You just sort of keep going. Make new important people."

Castle looked sideways at her when she said this, then realising that when her mother had died, her father had started a downward spiral – she'd lost the people she could depend on... she'd only been – what? 20? 21?.

"So," he said, pulling his jacket lapels down and changing the subject. "I noticed you didn't answer my question."

"What question?" she asked, focusing straight ahead.

"In your apartment," he said. "I asked you where we stand. You never answered me."

"Well, I guess I was mulling it over," she shrugged, trying to sound indifferent. Castle raised his eyebrows at her, an action that she didn't even need to see to know he'd done. She sighed, shaking her head. "We've been partners for two years now, Castle. If we start dating things will be... awkward. They'll know."

He didn't need to know who 'they' meant. "Everybody new we meet thinks we're already sleeping together," Castle pointed out. "Special Agent Shaw. Your friend Maddy. Natalie Rhodes..."

"It's not that obvious that I'm into you, is it?"

"Well, according to everybody else it is. It wasn't to me, not at first. But then..."

"Then what?"

"Then I came back."

He knew he didn't have to explain anymore. Beckett looked away, back at the road, thinking over everything.

"I guess we could try," she shrugged eventually. "You know – being together."

"Tell you what," Castle said, turning in his seat so that he could see her. "Soon as the case is done, I'll take you out for dinner. Just the two of us, somewhere quiet. I'll even wear a moustache to disguise myself so we don't get snapped by the paps."

"That'd be nice," she blushed. "Just not the moustache. You know I'd give you shit for that for weeks."

* * *

"Ryan, Esposito," Beckett said as she arrived back at the Twelfth. "What did you find for me on Max Harding, our vic from yesterday?"

"Second of three children, had one older sister, Lacey Harding, who died as you said in the Hamptons fire some years ago, and a younger sister, Lauren, who came in and identified him this morning. Other than that, nothing. We'll find something for you."

"They have to have some other sort of connection," Beckett sighed. "Okay, you two, start looking through phones and financials, see if anything shady pops up in one or both of theirs. I want information as soon as you get it. Castle, let's take another look through the case file from the fire. See if we can't find anything they might have missed."

"Yo, Beckett!" Esposito called from his desk. "Can I have a word? Without the puppy?"

Castle stared at him, then feigned hurt by clutching his hand to his chest and walking backwards out of the bullpen.


End file.
